


the sun will rise with my name on your lips

by gidgit



Category: Justified
Genre: Case Fic, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-26 06:55:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3841342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gidgit/pseuds/gidgit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim witnesses a murder, Raylan returns to Kentucky, and one thing leads to another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A few notes about the fic - including me bringing Ty Walker back to life and a quick tidbit on the timeline - can be found [here](http://timgutterson.tumblr.com/sunrise-notes1).

He hears footsteps in the hall. 

Whoever’s responsible for the sound has a long, slow gait, but even so they must be walking cautiously. Tim can hear each step they take in its individual components; the _thunk_ of a hard heel on the wooden floor, followed a long moment later by the tap of the toes, then a shift in weight that makes the floorboards below creak as they prepare to take another careful step. Then the hard _thunk_ would come again, sounding slightly nearer than before.

 _Cowboy boots_ , Tim thinks idly.

They’re drawing closer, albeit at a snail’s pace – then they grind to a halt completely. Silence returns, and Tim listens to his heart pump a few beats, the only sound he’d had to occupy him for some time before he heard those boots come creeping down that hall.

“Tim?” a voice calls, low and wary.

Tim’s eyes fall shut. “Yeah, Raylan.”

He’s walking again, faster now, like his strides have a definitive purpose. Tim hears the door open and there he is, framed like a portrait against a dark and gloomy backdrop. He stops again before he’s crossed the threshold into the room, gazing at what’s inside.

“Shit,” Raylan breathes softly.

There’s the sound of rushed steps across the room. Boots and denim appear in Tim’s field of vision. The boots pause, hesitating for a moment at the very edge of a forbidding, dark scene on the floor lying in their path to Tim.

“Shit,” Raylan says again, although it’s more of a hiss this time.

The boots are moving again, creeping along the edges of the room towards Tim. Next thing, rough hands are shaking him at his shoulders, angling him towards Raylan, who is sitting on his haunches next to him. Tim lifts his eyes to Raylan’s face, dragging them away from where they had been resting on something lying on the floor before him with an effort that makes him feel like he’s fighting a magnetic pull. The expression he finds twisting Raylan’s normally smooth features is not one he’s accustomed to seeing there – the eyes are wide, the mouth set at an odd, unfamiliar angle. He looks bewildered, Tim thinks, and maybe a bit frightened too, words not often associated with Raylan Givens, cowboy lawman extraordinaire.

“Are you hurt?” Raylan asks urgently. Tim blinks a few times, pondering the question – his brain feels so sluggish, he doesn’t normally have to try this hard to understand and respond to speech, he’s sure of it – and he feels Raylan’s grip at his shoulders tighten like a vice, shaking him again. The question bounces around his head like a pair of shoes in a tumble dryer.

“ _Tim_ ,” Raylan pleads, and Tim doesn’t think he’s ever heard Raylan pleading before, either, now that he thinks on it, “You’re covered in blood, I need to know–“ 

“’S not mine,” Tim replies. This does not appear to set Raylan much at ease – his eyes dart away from Tim’s face, landing and lingering on what’s lying on the floor in front of him. Tim never consciously decides to follow his gaze, but he finds himself doing so anyway. The bloodied face of a woman at his feet stares back at him, dead. She’s lying in a large amount of her own blood, a long, gaping wound at her throat which has long since run dry. It’s clearly the fatal injury, but Tim knows that there are others besides.

When the hands at his shoulders start shaking him yet again he tears his eyes away from the woman for the second time, with some degree of effort. Raylan somehow looks still more alarmed than he had previously.

“Can you– please, just–“ Tim hears himself say, a bit desperately, leaning forward and shifting his arms as much as he can. Raylan’s eyes fall to a place at the small of Tim’s back, where abrasive ropes are coiled tightly around Tim’s wrists. There are a few loops of rope that wind from Tim’s hands around the foot of a heavy wooden chest of drawers at his back, anchoring him to the spot where he is sitting on the floor, facing the dead woman.

Raylan’s hands flash away to undo the bindings, but the knots have been pulled tight and the rope is oddly slick. He struggles with it for some time before Tim finally feels the restraints go slack. When Raylan’s hands emerge from behind his back his fingers are spotted with shiny traces of blood.

Raylan’s opening his mouth to say something when Tim lurches to his feet. His legs are unexpectedly unsteady, though, and for a wild moment he thinks he’s about to come crashing down on top of the dead woman before Raylan’s hand finds a fistful of his shirt and yanks him backward. He bounces off the wall behind him and rolls left, bolting around Raylan, out the door, and into the hall.

He’s out the front door just seconds later, the cool night air filling his lungs in short, ragged breaths. The smell of the outdoors is very nearly overwhelming, burning fresh and cold in his nostrils, standing in stark contrast to the heavy, rusty smell of blood that filled the room where the woman was, hanging thick in the air like a fog. Traces of that scent have followed him out of the house – he remembers what Raylan said, _covered in blood_ – but it’s not as strong as it was inside.

His tongue flicks unthinkingly across his lips and it’s there too – that telltale, metallic tang – and the nausea rises so swiftly and strongly that it’s all he can do to stagger to the edge of the porch and vomit onto a rhododendron planted in the earth below. He wipes his mouth weakly as he collapses onto a porch step, leaning heavily against a white railing. When he scrubs a hand over his face and through his hair, a few dry reddish-black flakes flutter down past his eyes, settling at his feet and across his pants.

The sound of Raylan’s voice floats to him from back inside the house. Tim can’t make out what he’s saying, but he supposes that Raylan’s calling for police and a coroner, maybe an ambulance too, a ride Tim already has no plans of accepting. Or perhaps he’s talking to Art, or Rachel, reporting what he’s found, in which case the end result will be same – this house will be swarming with law enforcement, and sooner rather than later.

The conversation – whatever it is – ends, and Tim hears Raylan’s footsteps coming back up the hallway. He walks out the open front door and down the porch steps, turning once he’s reached the bottom to survey Tim carefully. There are a few moments of silence before he asks, “Are you okay?” Tim lifts his head lethargically to shoot Raylan a withering look, and Raylan changes tack immediately. “What happened?”

“Raylan…” Tim’s gaze drifts away from Raylan’s face, settles somewhere over the hat resting on his head. He gives his head a few small shakes, like he doesn’t know where to start and he’s hoping that the explanation will just fall out of him on its own. It doesn’t, and eventually he makes a hoarse laughing sound and says, “I don’t know.”

Raylan frowns, but doesn’t press.

If this were Raylan’s hometown, it would take ages for local PD to show up; in fact, he and Raylan would probably have time to bury the body and bleach the room before they arrived, if they were so inclined. But they’re in Bourbon County tonight, not Harlan, and only twenty miles or so from the Lexington office. There are flashing lights pulling up in a matter of minutes.

It’s two locals at first, but Tim knows that even as he sits here a small army of state and federal authorities are preparing to descend on the scene. These officers will be relegated to traffic duty and crowd control before long, something they seem to be aware of – they’re practically scurrying up to the porch, eager to see something impressive before higher-ups banish them from the action.

“Is the house secure?” one of them asks, by way of greeting. Raylan gestures to Tim, who doesn’t miss the startled double-take each of the officers perform upon laying eyes on him.

“Unless he’s hiding under a sink in there,” Tim offers with a shrug. The cops draw their guns from their holsters, which is unnecessary, and enter the house, which Tim is sure they would have done no matter his answer. There’s a low whistle ringing out from the end of the hall before long.

“Well, damn!” one of the officers calls out to them. Apparently they’ve found the body. “The hell happened in here?”

“Don’t know,” Raylan replies. Tim can feel Raylan’s eyes on him but acts like he doesn’t notice.

The officers return to the front door a few minutes later, guns holstered. “Guess the sink tip was a bust,” Tim mumbles, to no one in particular. It doesn’t seem as though anyone is paying him any mind, which is just as well.

“Dispatch told us this was concernin’ that escaped prisoner?” the first officer to step out onto the porch asks.

“It is,” Raylan answers shortly.

“He the one made that mess in there?” When nobody answers him this time, the officer asks instead, “Who’s the vic?”

“Lauren,” Tim says automatically, visions of the dead woman swimming before his eyes. He scrubs his hand over his face again, dislodges a few more flakes of dry blood. “Lauren Witt.”

Raylan breaks in before the officers can ask any more questions. “You boys mind moving those cruisers? There’s gonna be a lot of activity here soon, you’re blocking the drive.” The cold finality in his voice doesn't invite any argument, and the two officers slouch down the porch steps back towards their cars, looking disappointed.

An ambulance arrives next, and Tim shoots Raylan a resentful look that Raylan promptly ignores. The EMTs hop out of the cab but choose to hang back instead of proceeding to the house, acting very much as though they have been forewarned about the irritable deputy marshal they’ve been called to examine and have chosen to wait for him to come to them rather than risk making a scene. Tim feels no inclination to pay them such a visit and remains resolutely on the porch.

The next cars to arrive are from the County Sheriff’s office, and KSP shows up not long after. The street beyond is growing thicker with official-looking vehicles – uniforms and investigators, all making their way towards the house. They goggle at Tim when they reach the porch, stammering out questions about the crime scene until Raylan points them in the direction of the body inside. Soon the foot traffic in and out of the front door speaks for itself, and new arrivals walk right by them without saying anything at all, all doing relatively poor jobs of hiding the curious looks aimed in Tim’s direction as they pass.

“Tim,” Raylan says a bit testily after one gaping bystander nearly falls on his way up the steps, “Art may not be here for a good while yet, so will you do me a favor and go see the paramedics, please?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Tim maintains stubbornly.

Raylan doesn’t respond, just leans in toward him with an outstretched arm. He grasps the end of one of Tim’s long, black shirtsleeves and shifts it upward with a delicate motion, revealing deep, bloody grooves carved into the flesh of Tim’s wrist. Tim’s almost surprised to see it, he hadn’t really felt anything – perhaps a dull ache, something he was only dimly aware of in the recesses of this mind – but once he lays eyes on it the gouges begin to burn and smart in earnest. Tim inhales sharply, feels the same pain blossom across his other wrist as well. He realizes that Raylan knows about it because he’d fumbled so long with those knots, struggling with ropes that had apparently been slick with Tim’s own blood.

Still, they’re not exactly mortal wounds – nothing that can’t wait – and Tim is getting ready to say precisely this when Raylan says, “And, come to think of it, I doubt you ended up tied to the furniture because someone asked nicely.”

“Stun gun,” Tim admits grudgingly. “The little pink ones they market for ladies to keep in their purses.”

“Cute.”

“Not really.”

“Tim,” Raylan says again in tones of repressed exasperation, making a lazy gesture in the direction of the ambulance.

Normally Tim thinks he’d be somewhat indignant about Raylan ordering him around like he has any actual authority to do so, but it turns out he’s lacking the energy to put up much more of a fight tonight. He grabs the porch railing and uses it to pull himself to his feet, not missing the half step Raylan takes in his direction, as if he’s expecting Tim to lose his balance again.

“Should I bother trying to walk there myself or would you rather carry me?” Tim snaps.

Raylan shrugs. “I could get ‘em to bring the stretcher,” he says mildly. Tim turns his back on him without another word and heads in the direction of the ambulance. Raylan doesn’t move to follow, and Tim feels relieved – he could do with a few minutes away from Raylan’s vigilant scrutiny.

Tim gets off to a predictably rocky start with the EMTs when one of them tries to force a shock blanket onto him. They come to a tolerable compromise eventually – no blanket, but he does accept some wet-naps to try cleaning the blood off his face with while they tend to his left wrist. As Tim scrubs his face raw, the EMT applies a thick, cooling salve to the rope burns which immediately soothes the searing pain, then covers the gashes with a layer of gauze before wrapping the whole area in a white cotton bandage.

“They’re pretty deep,” the EMT says as Tim shifts his position to allow his other wrist to be worked on. “You’re gonna have to monitor for infection, change the bandages frequently…”

Tim nods, not really listening. When both his wrists are satisfactorily bandaged, the EMTs insist on a more thorough examination, which Tim agrees to simply because letting them do it will probably take less time than an argument on the subject. They find some minor burn marks smattered across his back and chest where the stun gun made contact, along with some mild scrapes and bruises, but otherwise he’s issued a clean bill of health. One of the EMTs insists that he’s a lucky guy and Tim levels him with a look that could blister paint.

The EMTs apparently realize that they’re better off cutting their losses and don’t even attempt to talk Tim into a ride to the hospital, sending him on his way after they’re finished patching him up. Tim savors this bit of good fortune as he strolls aimlessly around the edge of the drive, seeing as good fortune’s been in short supply for most of this day thus far, and takes some time to observe his surroundings. He’d allowed his mind to drift while he was in the ambulance, a singularly rare occurrence given his predisposition to total alertness at all times, and he finds that the scene around him has changed markedly.

Small bunches of people are bustling around in the night air, wearing uniforms and plainclothes, all cast in the eerie red and blue lights flashing from at least a dozen police cruisers in the vicinity. Forensic teams are lugging heavy equipment cases from their vans to the porch while a group of officers work on establishing an official perimeter around the property. It’s not quite loud, exactly, but there’s a definite hum of activity piercing the atmosphere now, where before everything had seemed almost unnaturally quiet and still.

The change is disorienting; it seems absurd that only an hour ago he’d been trapped in a scene from a cheap slasher flick and now – his heart is thumping so loudly in his chest again that soon it’s all he can hear. He feels winded, all of a sudden – he slouches against a nearby cruiser, bent over, hands gripping his thighs. The people, the sound – all this procedure and bureaucracy and _normalcy_ is casting a surreal pall over Tim’s memories, fresh though they are, so that it all starts to feel oddly unreal to him, like remembering a nightmare right after waking up safe in bed. It’s making his head spin – he feels stunned, he feels–

 _Shocked_ , he thinks. Then, caustically, _I should’ve taken a fucking blanket_.

Just as abruptly as it came, the feeling starts to pass – his heart sounds less and less like a bass drum pounding in his ears, each lungful of air is easier to catch than the last. There’s cold sweat on his skin and his muscles are twitching with exhaustion. He leans there for a while as the frenzied feeling dissipates, leaving his body sore and aching in its wake.

He straightens, surreptitiously searching for any sign of someone watching him, but he seems to have gone unnoticed. _Lucky_ , he thinks, just like the EMT said.

He pushes himself away from the car he’d been leaning on, deciding to strike out in search of the United States Marshal Service. Tim doesn’t see anyone that he recognizes milling around in his general vicinity, and the choice between returning to the house in search of a familiar face and looking literally anywhere else isn’t much of a choice at all. He turns toward the street and trudges away down the long drive, where a small crowd of cars and people are gathered.

His clothes are still sticky with drying blood, but it’s not so noticeable to observers on the black fabric of his shirt and pants at night, and the rough cleaning he gave his face ensures that he no longer draws much attention from distracted strangers as he passes them by. He’s careful not to bump into anyone, weaving anonymously through the throng, pausing every now and then to scan the area for any sign of Marshal presence. He catches sight of it eventually – a familiar hat bobbing above the rest. Tim makes a beeline for it and soon sees Raylan gathered with Art and Rachel, all apparently deep in conversation.

They’re huddled around an unmarked SUV, and as he approaches he starts to pick up on what they’re saying. “…bad is it?” he hears Art ask, and without really meaning to, Tim slows his pace, remaining just out of sight.

“Not good,” Raylan offers, rather unhelpfully, a sentiment Art seems to agree with.

“How ‘not good’ are we talking, Raylan?” Art asks, the words layered with that loud, impatient tone he gets when he’s stressed.

Raylan shrugs jerkily, so that it almost looks like a spasm. “From what I picked up from the guys working inside, it was ugly. Slow. He cut her throat when he was done.”

“And Tim?” Rachel presses. She sounds a little nervous, a far cry from her usual cool demeanor.

“Seemed mostly uninjured, but I got him to go get checked out anyway. He didn't say much when I found him. Couldn’t get out of that house fast enough, though.”

There’s a pause, and though Tim can’t see the expressions on any of their faces he gets the impression they’re all thinking the same thing. Raylan’s the one who finally says it. “Pulled up here, no lights on, real quiet, front door wide open… I was sure I was gonna find him dead in there with her,” he says, low and serious. “I was sure of it.”

There’s a sudden, unpleasant sensation in the pit of Tim’s stomach; it feels like going over a hill on a roller coaster, except instead of being exciting it’s just making him nauseous. Regretting his decision to eavesdrop in the first place, he clears his throat loudly and the three of them turn to face him.

There’s a tense moment of silence where no one really knows what to say. Raylan’s right back to his careful, quiet scrutiny, eyes sweeping over Tim like he’s searching for something the EMTs missed. Rachel, too, analyzes him closely, though the expression on her face belies more relief than anything else. Finally, Art says, “Shouldn’t you be on your way to a hospital?” in a sort of brusque attempt at casualness.

“Uh,” Tim says, grimacing in distaste. “No?”

Art snorts humorlessly and shakes his head. Tim keeps his hands behind his back, half-shoved down the waistband of his pants – it has the added benefit of keeping his bandaged wrists out of view.

“What the hell happened?” Art asks next, and Tim supposes he’s relieved that Art’s electing to just get it over with as fast as possible. _Like ripping off a Band-Aid,_ he thinks, resolutely ignoring the sudden uncomfortable quickness of his heartbeat.

“I got here right about fifteen-hundred and there was a car in the driveway – Lauren Witt’s, recognized it from the courthouse. I didn’t notice anyone or anything out of place in the surrounding neighborhood or on the property, so I approached the door.”

His voice is steady and impassive, like he’s read the information in a file. “When I knocked, she answered. I told her I needed to talk to her, asked her if I could come inside. We went in and when she closed the door, I told her Ty Walker had escaped custody and that I’d been sent to move her to a secure location until he’d been apprehended. She agreed and asked if she could go grab a few things from her room; it’s on the second floor with one window about fifteen feet up, and I thought if it came down to it I’d probably notice Walker carrying a ladder up the driveway, so I told her to go, but hurry up. I stayed at the front of the house; I wanted a good view of the road, passing cars.”

“And she didn’t have questions about any of this?” Art interrupts.

“She had a few – mostly pertaining to Walker’s escape. ‘How the hell,’ and the like. Also wanted to know where we were going. I told her I’d be taking her somewhere she’d be safe overnight and that I’d explain more once we were on our way. I told her not to worry, keeping witnesses safe is my job. She was watching something on the television when I got there,” he continues in a sudden rush – he already regrets repeating the last part. “She didn’t turn it off before she went to her room – it was Food Network… Iron Chef. Background noise. ‘S why I didn’t hear him till he was right behind me.”

He’d been standing by the bay window in the front room, watching the road beyond. He heard the creak on the floorboards just behind him and he’d known immediately what it meant; whoever it was had been too quiet approaching him to be doing anything other than sneaking up on him, and only one person had any reason to sneak up on him in here.

The sound had come from behind him and to the right, so Tim spun blindly left. Something grazed his jacket as it flapped around him, tugging on him sharply, but whatever it was didn’t catch hold. Tim’s hand had flown to the gun on his hip as he turned, but he knew it was too little, too late. He figured it would be a knife – quiet, good in close quarters like this – slid up between his ribs into his heart, or puncturing his kidneys, or severing his spinal cord. There was always the chance that Walker would be a son of a bitch about it too, he supposed – drive it into his stomach and let him lay there, dying slow for however long it took. It’d happened too fast for him to think very much beyond the fact that he was definitely going to die, except for the strange realization that his obituary would end up reading ‘killed in the line of duty’ after all.

“Tim?”

A gentle nudge from Rachel shakes him out of the memory and he realizes he’s stopped talking.

“Uh,” Tim stammers, trying to remember the last thing he’d said. He scratches at a spot near his temple distractedly before he remembers that he’d been trying to conceal the bandages on his wrist, the glaring white cotton now peeking out treacherously from under his black shirtsleeves. He feels three pairs of eyes examining it and hastily jams his hand back into the waistband of his pants, frustrated.

“Walker got the drop on him,” Raylan pipes up, corralling Art and Rachel’s attention. Tim’s flustered and irritated, but he’s also grateful for the momentary respite, if he’s honest. “Used Lauren Witt’s stun gun.”

“She had a stun gun?” Rachel asks.

“I reckon she was feeling somewhat unsafe recently,” Raylan says, glaring up at Lauren Witt’s house like it’s done something to offend him. After a few beats his eyes flick across Tim’s face before moving back to Rachel. “Can you blame her?”

“Guess not,” Rachel answers simply and Raylan sighs, lifting his hat with one hand and running his fingers through his hair a few times with the other. When he replaces the hat he sets it so that the brim is low over his eyes, lapsing into a moody silence.

“So Walker was already in the house when you got there?” Art asks, glancing between Tim and Raylan like he’s not sure who’s going to answer this time.

“Musta been,” Tim says. “I didn’t think to ask.”

Art’s frowning, face screwed up in thought. He shakes his head. “Well, that doesn’t make any sense,” he declares, without elaborating.

“You mean Lauren Witt could’ve been long dead and Walker long gone before Tim even walked up to that door,” Rachel supplies, evidently on the same train of thought. “Which is ostensibly what he should have wanted – with the only witness to the Stevens murder dead, the case against Walker falls apart.”

Art hums an affirmative, and Rachel continues. “Which either means he’d only just got there and Tim showed up before he could make a move, which would be pretty amazing timing–“

“Almost unbelievably so,” Raylan mutters darkly, eyes still lost under the hat brim.

“–or else he was waiting for someone to show up. He had to have known we’d send someone when the word got out he’d gone on the run,” Rachel finishes, sounding unsettled.

No one speaks for a moment as they think this over. Tim had arrived at this conclusion himself at some point over the past few hours – that Walker had purposefully chosen to lie in wait for the arrival of the Marshals rather than just make the kill that he had escaped from custody to carry out, along with a clean getaway. He doesn’t have any more insight into the why of it, though, and right now he finds that he doesn’t really care about Walker’s motivations. Raylan lifts his head a tad and Tim can feel that he’s watching him again.

“It’s not the only thing that doesn’t make sense,” Tim says, and he hopes that he doesn’t sound too reluctant to continue. He just wants to be done with this. “When I came around, he was there with her… she had sense enough not to try anything stupid with a loaded gun pointed at her. He said he had some questions for me and that it’d be in my best interest to cooperate; the usual shit. I told him to go to hell and he hit her so hard she spit out a few teeth.”

He’d misread Walker there, a mistake Tim doesn't make all that often in the course of his professional duties. He thought he’d known that he’d take the hit for his obstinacy, just like he thought he’d known he was dead in that front room, and he’d been wrong about both. Walker had proven troublingly adept at keeping Tim on his heels.

“After that it was all kinds of weird questions, and when he was done with those he killed her and left… he kept his face covered too, with a hood and bandana and sunglasses,” he adds, realizing with a jolt that he hadn’t mentioned such a pertinent detail yet.

Rachel asks, “He covered his face?” at the same time Raylan demands, “What kind of weird questions?” They exchange a glance and Rachel nods, and whether she’s being polite or just doesn’t feel like dealing with Raylan’s trait impatience right now, Tim can’t really tell.

Raylan rounds on him and asks again, in that same demanding tone, “What kind of questions?”

“He wanted to know shit about… I don’t know, where I served, how many tours, how I got into the Marshals, that kind of thing.” Raylan’s eyebrows are knitted together in mounting consternation and Tim tries to head off what he’s sure is going to be the next question. “Nothing about his case, or any other case, or any Marshal business or law enforcement activity at all – and, no, I don't know why.”

Raylan is obviously unsatisfied, but he dips his head again and seems momentarily stymied, at least, and Rachel is quick to seize her opportunity. “You said he concealed his face?”

Tim nods.

“And he kept it that way the whole… the entire time he was there?” she asks, clearly trying to sound delicate about ensuing events.

Tim nods again.

Rachel frowns, but it seems like this is the answer she’s expecting. “So you never actually got a clear look at him, then?”

“I know it was him, Rachel,” Tim responds, bristling.

“I know it was, too,” she says patiently, and Tim is immediately embarrassed for snapping at her. “But it worries me that after all this we still don’t know what the hell he’s up to. I mean, what’s the endgame here? Normally we’d just assume he’s making a run for the border to go live off whatever asshole’s pension fund he’s probably put together for himself, after murdering a witness in front of a federal agent and everything, but covering his face, asking you about unrelated topics…”

“Leaving me alive,” Tim interjects, scuffing the toe of his shoe against the asphalt underfoot.

Rachel nods, “… none of it adds up if he’s planning on running. He’s making some serious moves and we don’t even know what game he’s playing.”

There’s another pause in the conversation before Art, who has been curiously silent for the past several minutes, sighs. “So what we know is that an escaped fugitive arrived at his eventual victim’s home sometime soon after making his bid for freedom, laid in wait for the arrival of the U.S. Marshals, and upon that arrival subdued a deputy marshal in order to ask him personal questions for an ultimately unknown purpose. During this interrogation the victim sustained multiple injuries…”

“When he didn’t like the answer I was giving,” Tim supplies, hollow-voiced. “If he thought I wasn’t being forthcoming enough or that there was more to the story, he’d take it out on her.”

“Culminating in the eventual death of the victim and flight of the fugitive,” Art finishes with another sigh. He stands there, lost in thought, surveying the scene around him, before turning back to Tim with his jaw set. “Right. Okay, first of all, Tim, I want you out of here. We’ll find someone to give you a ride.”

“Don’t I have to give a statement?” Tim asks tentatively.

“You just did. You’re gonna have to sit down and go over it all – numerous times, I’m sure – for various interested parties over the next few days, but I think we ought to have enough for tonight; I’ll take care of the locals and the feebs. And don’t look too pleased, because you won’t like the next part,” Art adds gruffly in response to Tim’s shoulders visibly slumping in relief. “I’m stationing a protective detail with you until we nab Walker.”

“Art,” Tim groans, but he’s cut off immediately.

“It’s that or a hospital room overnight with armed security at the doors,” he warns, and Tim falls into a grudging silence, making an effort to remind himself that it’s probably bad form to roll your eyes in the boss’s face.

While Tim is busy biting his tongue, Raylan says, “I’ll do it.” Everyone turns their attention to him once again, and he lifts his chin so that they can all see his eyes more clearly. They’re dark, and narrow, and impossible to read – this comes as a surprise to Tim, who can usually discern what Raylan is thinking just by looking at them.

It’s a skill he honed in sniper school, focusing on eyes and facial expressions – it was particularly helpful in identifying potential threats operating under the cover of larger groups of noncombatants, in urban environments or behind the walls of compounds tucked into remote mountainsides – but he thinks in most circumstances he’d probably be able to get a read on Raylan even without the Ranger training. Raylan’s pretty expressive if you know what to look for, especially around the eyes – Tim’s unsure whether Raylan’s newfound inscrutability is authentic, or if he’s just off his game tonight, though somehow he doubts the latter.

No one answers, and so Raylan continues, “You know, give him a ride home. Keep a lookout for a little while. Figure I owe him after the thing with the hitmen.”

Tim fights down a sudden ridiculous urge to laugh, because he’s not sure he knows anyone else who would describe his ex-wife’s new husband’s attempt at sending contract killers after both of them in such casual tones as, you know, _the thing with the hitmen_ , even if it had been a while since the event itself. He succeeds insofar as it comes out a short, strangled cough, and Raylan has the nerve to shoot him a look of mild irritation.

“Avoiding a manhunt, Raylan?” Art asks skeptically.

“If KSP wants to scour the hills with bloodhounds and fine tooth combs, that’s their prerogative. Walker is smart, resourceful, and we’ve already established that he is clearly in the middle of executing a meticulously crafted plan that has kept him two steps ahead of us this entire time. You’re not gonna find him holed up in someone’s backyard the next town over,” he scoffs, and Tim can’t help but agree with him.

Art’s mouth twists into a reluctant frown, but he doesn't seem to disagree with Raylan’s assessment either. “Fine,” he relents, “Take him, stay with him, I’ll be in touch with any developments with all this.” He gestures widely to the commotion around them, nearly backhanding a passing crime scene technician clutching a camera tightly in his hands.

Tim’s mostly resentful about pulling a nanny, but once again finds that he’s not up for an argument – besides, Raylan’s an observant guy who in Tim’s experience has always known when to leave well enough alone regarding private matters. All things considered, he’s probably the least intrusive shadow Tim could hope for in this situation… well, maybe not the _least_ intrusive, but he’s certainly not likely to ply Tim with nosy questions the way someone less familiar with him might.

A strange expression is playing across Art’s face, suggesting Tim’s quiet acquiescence is causing him unease, which seems more than a little unfair considering the flak Tim normally catches for being ‘a smartass’ about ‘absolutely everything’ – but, again, he’s not looking to argue right now. Finally Art blurts, with the air of someone trying desperately not to blurt something, “Tim, are you okay?”

Sometimes Tim wonders why people bother to ask questions when they know full well they aren’t going to get an answer – not the answer they’re looking for, anyway. Still, he figures he can’t blow Art off the way he blew off Raylan when he asked the same thing earlier, so he sticks with a curt, tried-and-true, “I’m fine, boss.”

“Okay,” Art says, raising his hands defensively like Tim had shouted. “Forget I asked.”

Raylan turns to go, and Tim nods once at Art and another time at Rachel before following. They each give him worryingly similar sympathetic looks in return, complete with weakly encouraging smiles, and then put their heads together in private conversation.

“I’m so ready to not be here,” Tim admits aloud as they trek away from the heart of the crime scene. Raylan doesn't say anything, but nods a bit in agreement. Tim gazes up at the purplish-black, starry sky – like the color of a fresh bruise – saying, “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have a gym bag in the trunk, would you?”

“No,” Raylan replies suspiciously, “why?”

“Don’t wanna stain your interior,” Tim offers vaguely in explanation. Raylan turns suddenly on his heel – so fast that Tim comes very close to flinching – and stands over him in a way that’s almost menacing. He reaches out with his right hand and sets the tips of two fingers on Tim’s shirt, right over his heart, waiting a long moment before lifting them to examine the sticky residue left behind, gleaming on his skin in the dim light.

“Just wait here a minute,” he says, already walking away, and Tim releases a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He stands there alone in the middle of the gloomy street, because he doesn’t really have anywhere else to go; Raylan’s back in a matter of minutes, some dark cloth draped over his arm.

“Spare clothes,” he says, tossing them in Tim’s direction. “Don’t know about the fit – guy probably had six inches and fifty pounds on you.”

“Six inches, fifty pounds, and you stole his clothes,” Tim deadpans, turning the dark mass of fabric over in his hands. It’s a large blue t-shirt and black sweatpants, both marked with University of Kentucky emblems.

“ _Borrowed_ his clothes,” Raylan hums.

“Yeah. Didn’t happen to get a name, or a mailing address, or, like, a general idea of the branch or agency of law enforcement he works for, did you? So that you could un-borrow them at some point?”

“I told him if he comes on in to the Lexington courthouse, there’s a pretty good chance he’ll meet someone who may be able to point him in the direction of his requisitioned property,” Raylan explains, making it sound very matter-of-fact.

Tim tips his head back and exhales a slow, drawling laugh. Raylan glances at him as they walk down the road, one corner of his mouth turned up in something approaching the start of a grin. With the buzz of activity behind them, the air’s become still once more, though comfortably so, and the vast, star-strewn sky stretches endlessly before them over the rolling landscape. Under different circumstances, it might not be a bad night.

They reach Raylan’s car a bit further on, and Tim opens the passenger-side door, placing the ‘borrowed’ clothes on the roof. He shucks off his own overshirt and then pulls the bloody tee underneath roughly up over his head. The cool spring air raises goosebumps across his bare skin as he reaches for the new t-shirt, conspicuous white bandages on his wrists in full view. Raylan, for his part, busies himself with something or other in the driver’s seat as Tim pulls on the shirt and then changes his pants; a gentlemanly attempt to afford him whatever privacy possible as he undresses on the side of the road. Of course, several deployments across the Middle East in a unit of mostly twenty-something-year-old Rangers has pretty much sapped Tim of whatever dubious concerns about modesty he ever possessed in the first place, but he still appreciates the sentiment.

The clothes are too big in the end, but they’re dry and they smell fresh, which is a marked enough improvement that Tim’s not likely to complain about it. He signals for Raylan to pop the trunk and tosses the blood-spattered clothing in – he’d been tempted to leave it in a pile on the side of the road, but he can just imagine KSP stumbling across it at some point and spending hours investigating, believing it to be a clue to Walker’s whereabouts before someone bothered to straighten their shit out. He finally flops into the passenger seat and shuts the door as the engine hums to life, and they peel out onto the road. Less than a minute later they turn a corner, and the last traces of the flashing police lights fade into the distance behind them.

Tim sighs and rests his forehead against the window, content to sit in peace and quiet for a little bit. Raylan obliges him in this without needing to be asked, not bothering with small talk or reaching for the radio dial as he cruises along the winding roads towards the highway. From there it’s a straight shot back to Lexington, about half an hour’s ride.

Though he’s quiet, it becomes clear rather shortly that the ride is not a peaceful one for Raylan. Whatever he’s thinking but not saying is preoccupying him – he’s determinedly keeping his eyes facing forward, but Tim feels the car jerk two separate times, like Raylan realized they’d begun drifting out of their lane and had to correct suddenly.

It’s Tim who eventually breaks the silence, just after Raylan makes the turn onto the highway and they pass a sign on the roadside that tells them they have twenty miles to go. He leans away from the window – the part of his forehead that was pressed against the glass feeling a little numb – and peers at Raylan through the dark.

“You can go ahead and ask,” Tim says, because he thinks he knows what’s distracting Raylan – or, at least, he knows what would be distracting him if their positions were reversed, and he’s hazarding that Raylan’s thinking along the same lines. Raylan takes his eyes off the road to turn and give him an appraising look.

“Ask what?” he says after a beat, looking back at the road again.

“I can physically feel you thinking over there–“

“I’m not _thinking_ about anything,” Raylan counters, huffing impatiently when he turns again and sees Tim’s wry expression.

“Listen,” Tim says, in an uncharacteristically sober way, “I’m giving you permission to ask.”

He doesn’t really want to talk about it, but he can’t blame Raylan for his… curiosity? Concern? Either way, it’s what Tim would want to know, too; the blood. On his face, on his clothes, probably still in his hair, and none of it his – having observed the crime scene Raylan can probably suss out what happened for himself, but Tim’s all too aware of the fact that guessing isn’t the same as knowing for certain.

When Raylan’s done considering this and opens his mouth to speak, though, his question isn’t about the blood at all. “Did I ever tell you about Tommy Bucks?”

A startled laugh bursts from Tim and Raylan looks at him with a raised eyebrow.

“I mean, I don’t think you ever gave me the blow-by-blow, but I’m familiar with the legend,” Tim responds uncertainly, not sure where this is heading. “Twenty-four hours to get out of town, him not getting out of town, and so on. It was kind of a watershed moment, I don’t know if you remember.”

Raylan shakes his head, “Not that part. About _why_ I told him to run.”

“Uh,” Tim says blankly, “he was a scumbag?”

“I don’t shoot every scumbag I meet in our line of work.”

“Don’t you?”

“Tim.”

“He was a particularly scummy scumbag,” Tim tries. He’d been curious about the case when he’d seen it on the news, even more so when rumors about the cowboy marshal responsible started flying around the office. When word got out said cowboy marshal would be joining them in Eastern Kentucky it’d gotten the best of him, and he went searching for Tommy Bucks in the database. He’d found a large number of violent crimes which were rather exhaustive in their scope, all suspected to be Bucks’ handiwork, and a list of known associates that read like the Yellow Pages for organized crime in Miami – he was a genuine piece of shit, in short. This being the case, Tim hadn’t focused on any one of his many misdeeds in particular.

Raylan works his jaw, and Tim thinks he’s changing his mind about saying whatever it is he was planning to say. But then, with another quick glance in Tim’s direction, he says, “I was in Nicaragua – don’t know whether you remember Roland Pike–“

“The repo dentist,” Tim says, and Raylan nods grimly.

“We were both after him, and Bucks got the drop on me. He wanted to know where Pike was, had some other guy tied to a tree. Said he’d kill us both if I didn’t tell him what I knew, so I did.”

Tim is suddenly and uncomfortably aware of his heartbeat pounding in his ears, of goosebumps rising across his arms even though the car is perfectly warm. He shifts in his seat surreptitiously, loosening the seatbelt that now feels a bit too snug across his chest.

“Bucks listened to everything I had to say, and when I was done he walked over to that man, taped a piece of dynamite into his mouth, and lit the fuse. And I’d seen men die before that, and I’ve seen men die since, and in an array of uniquely unpleasant ways. But something about that one… maybe it was just the cruelty, though I guess I thought I’d seen enough of that, too, that I didn’t expect it to cut like it did.”

Tim’s eyes fall shut, the image of a pale, bloody face flickering through his mind. When he opens them again he sees Raylan’s jaw set in a hard line as he looks out on the road, his hands clenched tightly around the wheel. He wonders how Raylan felt at that moment, when the lingering hopes of saving that man’s life had been dashed irrevocably. And how had he felt after, knowing everything he’d tried had been in vain?

“When Walker was done asking me… when I told him everything he wanted to know,” Tim says slowly, and Raylan turns so that he can look from Tim, to where he’s driving, and back again with just a quick movement of the eyes, “she was in pretty bad shape, but he lifted her up and brought her over. She couldn’t support her own weight by that point, so he kind of propped her up so that she was standing right over me. And then he cut her throat. That’s where the blood came from.”

Raylan nods once, expression unchanging. Tim rests his head against the window once more with a dull thud, watching blurry shapes outside zip past in the darkness.

“There’s something that needs to be said here, and know that I enjoy saying it as little as you’ll enjoy hearing it, but–“ Raylan begins, but Tim cuts him off.

“Is it ‘don’t blame yourself, there’s nothing you could have done and you’re lucky to be alive’?”

“It is,” Raylan confirms in grave tones.

A mirthless smile tugs at the corners of Tim’s mouth. “Do you know something? I don’t blame myself. I did everything I could, but I knew nothing I said or did would make a difference. Killing her was what he came there to do. Even him having the drop on me – it happens. Not often, but…” He’s looking out through the window and up at the sky, but the highway is carrying them through a less rural region of the Bluegrass State, and light pollution is obstructing the view of the stars. “Blaming _myself_ isn’t the fucking problem.”

“No kidding. I ended up shootin’ Tommy Bucks.”

The miles tick away slowly, and Tim drifts in and out of focus for the remaining duration of the ride. He feels… well, he’s not really sure how he feels. Tired, mostly, and sore – that much he does know. Only when they pull into the lot of a familiar apartment complex does Tim realize he never explicitly told Raylan where they were supposed to be going.

“Did I tell you where I live?” Tim asks, feeling pretty sure that he already knows the answer.

“You’ve made references to the general area, but I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned an exact address, no.”

“Then how–“

“I make it my business to know where some of my more amenable coworkers live, case I ever need a spot to lay low or find myself in a situation where a hospital is ill-advised,” Raylan explains conversationally. Tim starts to smirk in a ‘ha, good one’ kind of way, but Raylan merely shuts off the car and opens the door to get out.

“Wait, are you serious?” Tim scrambles out of the car after him, adding, “’Amenable’?” in what he sincerely hopes is a sufficiently offended tone. Raylan hums in reply, which is not actually an answer, and sets off across the lot towards the building, Tim hurrying in his wake.

He catches up and resumes a more leisurely pace, letting Raylan lead by about a step because he’s curious to see whether Raylan knows which apartment is his or if he just knows the building. To Tim’s mounting consternation, Raylan heads in the right direction without any input, shooting Tim a very self-satisfied look in the process. He still doesn’t know if Raylan was joking, but he has a vivid image of coming home one day to find Raylan bleeding on his couch, demanding that Tim help treat a bullet wound with a bottle of gin and a sewing kit, and he feels a dull throbbing pain around his temples.

When they reach his front door, Raylan finally steps aside to allow Tim to open it – Tim figures he’s lucky Raylan hasn’t clandestinely had a key made. Once inside, Tim makes a beeline for the kitchen; Raylan takes a few moments to familiarize himself with the surroundings before following, which is a simple enough task given the small size of the place – the room they’re in is a combined kitchen, dining, and living room area with a couple of windows that are bare with the exception of some old plastic blinds, furnished sparingly with a round, wooden table for eating and a slightly ratty couch facing a television set, with a half-open door to the left that leads to the apartment’s lone bedroom.

In the kitchen, Tim opens a cabinet and withdraws a bottle of bourbon and two mismatched glasses, pours a liberal amount of the amber liquid into each, and slides one down along the counter to where Raylan is leaning, keeping the other for himself. He lifts his glass without a word and finishes it in one go; out of the corner of his eye he sees Raylan following suit. He fills his glass again, slides the bottle down the counter in case Raylan wants to do the same (he reaches for it immediately, so it seems like he does), and polishes that off too.

“Okay,” Tim says as heat pools in his stomach, tendrils of warmth creeping through the veins in his arms and legs, “I think I need a shower, so… help yourself,” he adds, pointing to the bottle, and Raylan nods.

Tim trudges through the door to his bedroom, straight through to the only bathroom in the place, shucking off the borrowed clothes as he goes. Flicking on the bathroom light, he catches a glimpse of his face reflected in the mirror on the medicine cabinet hanging over his sink. The wet-naps from the ambulance certainly helped some, but he missed a few streaks of blood around his ears and neck, and under the fluorescent bathroom light he can see that even the areas of skin he did manage to wipe off are stained a gory reddish color.

There’s more blood matted in his hair, and dark circles under his eyes – tired of looking, he turns away from the mirror, cranks the shower knob, and gets in. He realizes as he stands there that he’d forgotten about the bandages on his wrists, which are already sodden and ruined – with a frustrated grunt he tears through the layers of wrapping and gauze, dropping them unceremoniously at his feet. The angry red grooves sting as the water washes away the EMT’s healing goop, though Tim pays them no mind.

Tim enjoys a nice hot shower – spending days at a time on Afghani mountainsides in increasingly worsening states of his own filth guaranteed that he’d never take such simple comforts for granted as long as he lived – but the water falling on him now is scalding. He doesn't move to adjust it, but reaches instead for the soap and begins scrubbing himself raw with excruciating thoroughness. The water coming off him runs sudsy and red to the drain for a little while – he waits until he sees it run clear, and then he scrubs for another ten minutes for good measure. When he’s done scouring his skin and rinsing his hair he stands under the searing stream for a bit longer, until the hot water starts to run out and is replaced with water that feels freezing cold in comparison. Even so he remains there for another few minutes before shutting the shower off.

He emerges from the bedroom several minutes later clad in his own sweatpants, undershirt, and flannel, the sleeves rolled up carefully over the uncovered rope burns to keep them from sticking. Raylan’s sitting at the table and eyeing him vigilantly, though it seems he hasn’t taken full advantage of Tim’s offer concerning the bourbon – he’s poured himself another glass, but it sits there looking mostly untouched. Tim pours himself a third, because this is his place and he’s had a night, after all, and when he raises it to his lips Raylan follows suit. Tim thinks that maybe he was waiting for him because it was the polite thing to do, and he can’t suppress a snort at the thought.

“What?” Raylan asks, eyes narrowing a little.

“Nothing. You.” Tim refills his glass again, but takes a seat at the table as well and decides to nurse this one a bit. His head swims pleasantly as a result of the first three rounds – he decides to savor the feeling for a little while, rather than go directly from zero to shitfaced, which admittedly is sort of how he envisioned the night going prior to this. Raylan moves to refill his glass as well, eyeing Tim in a rather evaluative way – in an attempt to throw him off such behavior, Tim asks, “So, how ya been?”

Raylan frowns as if Tim’s done something vaguely annoying, which lifts Tim’s spirits in itself. “How’ve I been?” Raylan repeats, like it’s something ridiculous and not a common question that human beings tend to ask one another after periods of time spent apart.

“’S what I asked.”

“I don’t know. Florida’s hot. Winona’s trying to potty train Willa.”

“ _Winona’s_ trying? And you’re…?”

“I don’t see we need to rush her into anything,” Raylan says haughtily. Tim has a sneaking suspicion it’s the verbatim explanation Raylan’s probably repeated to an exasperated Winona several times over, and sympathy swells for her in his gut.

“And what would you estimate the ratio of dirty diapers Winona’s changed to the number you’ve changed to be, if you had to hazard a guess?”

Raylan rolls his eyes exaggeratedly and mutters something about a comparison between Tim and Winona’s mother, taking a beleaguered swig of his bourbon. He lifts the hat off his head and places it carefully on the table, running his other hand through his hair wearily. Tim gazes at the spot where Raylan set the hat down, considering the black material thoughtfully.

“Don't know if I like this one as much as the last,” Tim says of the hat, and Raylan glances at it briefly before his gaze lifts to Tim.

“Well, I figured I shouldn’t walk around wearing articles of clothing riddled with bullet holes, for professional reasons.”

“Seem like overkill?”

“Little bit, yeah.”

“Coulda just bought a different one,” Tim muses. Raylan shrugs, not saying anything. Tim’s thoughts drift to a pair of sunglasses that he knows are sitting on top of his dresser in the bedroom. “Then again, I guess not,” he concedes under his breath, swallowing another burning mouthful of bourbon.

“So, what about you? How’ve you been?” Raylan asks, and the question is layered in thick irony. Tim gets the impression Raylan’s barely suppressing an eye roll.

“I don’t understand, is asking people how they are not done where you come from or something?”

“Small talk’s just a little weird for us.”

“’Small talk’,” Tim repeats with a laughing breath, lifting his glass to his mouth again. When he sets it down he says, “You mean, like, normal conversation? The kind real people have?”

“The very same,” Raylan responds simply, mouth twisted into half of a grin.

The liquor’s loosening him up, like something tightly coiled in the pit of his stomach is coming unwound, and his head feels warm and light. He admits to himself that he understands Raylan’s point, in a fashion; most normal people probably don’t have casual discussions about the personal property they’ve lifted off men they shot, at any rate.

“Well, it’s been business as usual ‘round here,” Tim says airily, answering the question anyway. “Catching fugitives, you know. Upholding the law, serving Uncle Sam and such.”

“I asked about you, not work.”

“That’s really something, coming from you,” Tim drawls flatly.

Raylan pulls a face that Tim interprets as meaning ‘fair enough’ and tips the bottle of bourbon over his glass first, then Tim’s, splitting what little remains equally between the two of them. Tim nods in thanks and Raylan sets the empty bottle down.

A certain quiet falls as Raylan sips his bourbon, Tim twisting his own glass on the table slowly between his fingertips. Memories of the day creep unbidden to the forefront of Tim’s mind, settling on him like a weight. The slightly drunken buoyancy he felt only moments ago evaporates, leaving only a tired – and still slightly drunken – heaviness in its wake, and his shoulders slump some as he exhales a long breath.

Raylan, watching Tim carefully yet again, notices the stormy expression stealing over his face and intuits what’s bothering him. “They’ll catch him,” he says, and Tim lifts his eyes from the glass to give Raylan a hard look.

“And if they don’t?”

Raylan shrugs. “Then we’ll catch him.”

Tim opens his mouth to question Raylan about this, then shuts it again when he finds that he doesn't really know what it is that he wants to ask. Working his jaw distractedly, he finally says, “I think if I caught him I’d just shoot him." 

“He’s armed, dangerous – pretty good chance you’d find yourself in a situation where it went down like that,” Raylan says slowly.

Tim shakes his head vigorously, still spinning his glass slowly on the table. “You know what I mean. No matter the situation.”

Raylan is observing him so intently that Tim feels like a particularly rare specimen placed under a microscope for study. When he speaks, it’s with that same, careful slowness. “Well, that’d be your call.”

Tim throws back the rest of his drink abruptly, his expression impatient, slamming the glass back onto the table with enough force that he’s lucky not to have shattered it. Raylan’s still watching him closely, and Tim feels some of that anger, trapped inside him with no deserving outlet to unleash it upon, refocus onto him; there’s a part of Tim that knows it’s unfair, although the larger, drunker, more furious part of him shouts that logical voice down.

“Right,” Tim snarls, “because that’s what you’d do. I’ll just leave my badge on a hillside and go after him, see how it all shakes out.”

Surprise registers on Raylan’s face, but the features are smoothing themselves into a detached expression a second later. “You brought up shooting him,” he says stiffly.

“Yeah!” Tim exclaims, “And generally the response to that would be ‘I understand some fucked up shit has occurred, but do not commit murder,’ and not, ‘hey, go for it if you’re feeling in the mood.’”

“I never said to go for it,” Raylan argues hotly, “and I wasn’t tryin’ to give you the _general response_ , either, I was telling you the truth – you’re smart enough to know that.” He throws his hands up in exasperation. “Why are we even talking about this? The only person who’s gonna get a shot at him will be the first one through the door when they track him down tonight or tomorrow, and either way it sure as shit ain’t gonna be you.”

Tim glares at him, but his energy for this fight is already slipping away; he remembers suddenly that he’s been trying all night not to argue with anyone – the EMTs, or Art, or Raylan himself – for this exact reason. He sighs irritably and scrubs a hand over his face; Raylan, whose body seemed to go rigid with tension as he grew angrier, relaxes some opposite him as he realizes Tim’s probably not going to yell at him anymore.

“Jesus,” Tim mutters, more to himself than anything, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. His vision is blurry when he looks up again; he sees the fuzzy shape of Raylan sitting there, and the sight is nearly disorienting. Raylan Givens sitting, a little drunk, at Tim’s kitchen table, when earlier this very day he’d just been a former coworker Tim hadn’t seen in over a year.

Well, maybe ‘former coworker’ isn’t quite right; it seems somehow lacking, an incomplete way of describing what Raylan was to Tim – what he still is, even – but if those aren’t the right words for Raylan, Tim’s lost to come up with new ones. If he were a gambling man (which he is), he’d bet that Raylan feels something similar, and maybe he’s done a better job of identifying it than Tim has. After all, he’s the one who’s come a thousand miles to sit at this table – it seems like a strange thing to do without some sort of reason.

“Why are you even here, Raylan?” Tim asks, and as he says it he realizes it’s the question he’s been trying to ask all night, lingering in the recesses of his mind since Raylan came walking down that hallway what feels like a hundred years ago.

Raylan blinks at him, apparently considering his response. “Just seemed like where I should be, I guess,” he replies eventually.

Tim snorts humorlessly. So much for that. “Great,” he says, standing up and grabbing his empty glass from off the table, thinking of the unopened pint of bourbon stashed away in his sock drawer, “and I should be getting to bed, so–“

He moves toward the bedroom door, but Raylan snags his elbow and says, “Wait.” Then he’s out of the chair and standing over Tim again like he’d done in the street outside Lauren Witt’s house, too close, dark eyes boring into Tim’s own, and Tim’s heart is beating hard and fast in his chest, his head swimming in alcohol and something else, too, something–

And then Raylan’s mouth is on his, and he’s not sure whose idea it was, exactly, but he finds that it doesn’t really matter. Raylan tastes like Tim’s bourbon, and his hand is warm where it brushes lightly against the side of Tim’s face. When Tim moves, Raylan moves with him, until Tim’s back bumps against the bedroom doorjamb. Raylan is alternately sweet and greedy, ghosting his lips along Tim’s jaw before kissing him so deeply that it makes him lightheaded.

Raylan encircles one of Tim’s wrists with his hand, and Tim hisses at the same time Raylan realizes he’s not grasping smooth skin. He lets go hastily and the gouges from the ropes burn smartly where he’d touched them.

“Sorry,” Raylan says hoarsely, but Tim shakes his head to indicate that it’s nothing, taking advantage of the opportunity to push open the bedroom door and draw Raylan inside. They crash onto the bed in a disorganized pile, and Raylan clearly revels in having Tim under him – Tim can feel him grinning as they kiss, and it fills him with an almost giddy energy.

Finally, Tim breaks away from Raylan’s lips with a wet sound. Raylan leans back so he can gaze down at Tim questioningly, and Tim makes a nodding gesture to the slim bit of space between them. Raylan’s face splits into a grin again, and he’s tugging down Tim’s sweatpants while Tim reaches for the nightstand beside his bed with one hand, opening the drawer and scrabbling through it blindly until his hand closes around a slim plastic bottle. He tosses it so that it bounces lightly off Raylan’s shoulder, and Raylan snatches it up from where it lands on the bed next to him.

Tim lets his head fall back on the mattress as Raylan pushes his knees away from one another and slides in between them, making a trail with his lips from Tim’s navel to the inside of his thighs. Tim hears the faint _pop_ as Raylan opens the plastic bottle he’d thrown to him, and moments later Tim feels a slippery, cold finger slide into him.

Raylan works the finger in and out, very slowly at first, then with a little more speed. Tim feels as if his body is melting away into the comforter, though he’s shocked out of the serene feeling occasionally when Raylan’s finger triggers shivers that run like electric currents along the length of his spine. At some point, Raylan pauses and leans back. Tim pushes himself up onto his elbows, eyeing him quizzically.

“What?”

“It’s just, after so much fanfare about your boner over the course of the years–“

“Oh my God,” Tim moans, falling onto his back again.

“–it’s nice to finally get acquainted, is all,” Raylan finishes with a flourish.

“Keep laughin’. I’ll stop this right now – jerk myself off into a sock, ruin all this fun you’re having,” Tim threatens, although Raylan plainly suspects that it’s an idle one.

“Bullshit,” Raylan says bluntly, and to punctuate this he slips two slick fingers into Tim, who realizes that Raylan’s right – he’s not going to put a stop to this any time soon.

Raylan takes his time as he opens Tim up little by little, to the point where Tim actually does start to reach down in an effort to wrap a hand around himself and rub out a little relief. Raylan swats it away and Tim groans loudly in protest.

“My dick is being neglected,” he complains with a feeble gesture, and in lieu of a response Raylan pulls his fingers out of Tim altogether.

Tim tips his head forward, meaning to explain that he’d only been joking – a bad joke, Raylan should keep going, really – just in time to see Raylan ducking his head, taking Tim into his mouth. He moves with criminal slowness, lowering himself in small increments until his lips are wrapped around the base of Tim’s certainly no-longer-neglected dick, then proceeds to pull himself back up just as slowly. Tim shuts his eyes and shudders violently. When he feels Raylan’s mouth slide over the head and release, he looks up again, bleary-eyed, to find Raylan smirking at him.

“Better?” Raylan asks, looking very much as though he already knows the answer. He’d assume it was the alcohol making Raylan so confident if he didn’t know any better.

“Uh-huh,” Tim says, dazed.

Raylan, still looking smug, draws away from where Tim is lying on the bed and moves out of sight. Tim hears the nightstand drawer open once more and the sound of Raylan rummaging through it.

“So this is why you’re here,” Tim says a little breathlessly to the ceiling, “this was your plan all along. Tell me if I’m getting warmer.”

It sounds like Raylan’s found whatever he was searching for in the drawer – Tim hears it close, followed by the crinkling of a wrapper.

“There was no _plan_ ,” he hears Raylan say, and something heavy falls onto the floor – Raylan’s jeans, if Tim were to guess.

“You know, I think I actually believe that’s true,” Tim replies honestly, smiling a bit to himself. “Or I’m just a complete sucker,” he adds as he rolls over to look at Raylan, smile faltering as he does so.

Raylan is naked, lounging languidly in a half-sitting position across some of Tim’s pillows. He’s already taken it upon himself to put on a condom – must have been what he’d pulled out of the nightstand – and Tim recognizes the unruly glint that’s currently shining in his eyes. He’s come to associate that particular look with times when Raylan’s about to do something that he knows he shouldn’t, or at least something that Art would probably take issue with him doing. Raylan doesn’t move, just lifts an eyebrow at him that’s half expectant and half a challenge, and Tim thinks he was probably right – he is definitely a sucker.

Tim draws himself up and moves toward Raylan with a calculated deliberateness. Raylan still doesn’t make to move, instead opting to watch Tim carefully as he’s done all night, though Tim doesn’t mind so much under these new circumstances. Tim slings one leg over Raylan’s body so that he’s straddling Raylan across the hips, and he leans down to give Raylan a hungry kiss. Raylan's mouth pursues Tim’s when he finally breaks it off, and this time it’s Tim’s turn to grin smugly.

With an agile little movement Tim flips himself around, now straddling Raylan’s hips with his back to Raylan’s chest. He lowers himself gradually, using his hand to guide Raylan into him, and comes to rest at the bottom, content to just sit there for a moment and enjoy the little sounds and grunts that Raylan’s making behind him. As expected, Raylan’s much better at asking for patience than giving it, and an insistent hand is grabbing at Tim’s thigh within a few seconds, pushing on it in an effort to make him move.

Tim plants one foot firmly into the mattress and lifts his body up just a little, giving them some space to work with, and Raylan makes use of it immediately, thrusting up and in to Tim. It takes Tim a few tries to balance himself in a position that’s comfortable, and when he does he turns his focus to the timing of Raylan’s movements. They find a rhythm soon after, one of Raylan’s hands still clutching at Tim’s thigh, the other grasping his waist, moving him in time with the bucking of Raylan’s hips.

Tim wraps a hand around himself, and this time Raylan’s too busy to object – Tim strokes his dick slowly at first, then increases the pace to match the established tempo. He feels Raylan’s breath hot on his back, the hand at his waist gripping tight enough to bruise, and he tips his head back, loses track of the world around him.

After a while, an uptick in Raylan’s speed brings him back to himself – he’s growing more and more urgent with every thrust. It doesn’t come as a surprise when Raylan pants, “I’m gonna finish.”

Tim nods, but apparently it’s one of those rare moments when he and Raylan aren’t on the same mental wave, because suddenly Tim’s hurtling through the air without so much as a warning. He’s stunned for a few moments after he lands on the mattress, before he realizes that Raylan has flipped him onto his back intentionally. Raylan, standing beside the bed now, wraps his arms around Tim’s legs and pulls him to the edge of the mattress, pushes his knees out to the side and up towards Tim’s elbows. Then they’re fucking again, fast and hard, the only thoughts in Tim’s mind having to do with Raylan and the feeling of their bodies together…

Raylan suddenly slows, swapping his nearly frantic pace for a series of deep, penetrating thrusts, and Tim knows that he's coming. Raylan’s making these sounds – quiet grunts and gasps escaping from between his teeth – that are sexier than they really have any right to be, and it’s these noises that Tim focuses on as he shuts his eyes and continues to jerk himself off. By the time Tim finishes, Raylan’s gone a little soft inside him, and he pulls out as Tim lays there, breathing heavy with his own come settling warm and sticky across his stomach.

Tim opens his eyes and sees Raylan still standing there between his legs, looking down at him with an odd expression on his face. Tim tries to speak but finds that his mouth is too dry to produce much more than a hoarse croak; he swallows, swipes his tongue across his lips, and tries again: “Enjoy the show?”

Raylan blinks a few times, a lazy grin spreading across his face as he says, “As a matter of fact, I did.” A few moments pass where they just kind of look at each other, Tim on the bed and Raylan standing before him – they’re a little sweaty and a little drunk, with matching wild hair and blown pupils, both still half hard.

“Well,” Tim says, “shit.”

At this Raylan shakes his head, wearing a very Raylan-ish ‘amused despite himself’ sort of expression, and falls forward onto the bed. Tim takes advantage of the opportunity to sit up quickly, reaching for the closest article of clothing he can find – a sock on the floor at his feet, which he strongly suspects does not belong to him. Regardless, he uses it to wipe at the white streaks of come across his abdomen; he does a rough job, but it’s good enough. Tim’s felt exhausted for hours, but he hasn’t approached anything close to drowsiness all night long; now, though, he feels a powerful sleepiness drawing over him, as inevitable as oncoming waves crashing onto a shore. He tosses the sock away carelessly and lies back, already feeling his mind begin to drift.

“Tim?” he hears Raylan ask, and he sounds like he might be stifling a yawn.

“Yeah, Raylan,” Tim answers, eyes falling shut.

But Raylan’s question, if he ever asks it, falls on deaf ears. Tim’s asleep before he hears another word.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoo boy! thanks to everyone who read the first chapter, YOU THE REAL MVP. i think im just gonna keep adding updates and notes and stuff to [this page](http://timgutterson.tumblr.com/sunrise-notes1) \- you can check there for progress on new chapters and such if you so desire.

The last few minutes in the room are the hardest.

Technically they’re not even his last few minutes in the room; after Walker leaves, Tim’s looking at a long hell of a wait before anyone finds him here. But they’re the last few minutes that matter, and Tim feels them slipping away all the faster the more he tries to draw them out, like a bar of soap that gets harder to hold on to the tighter he grasps it.

He’s rambling now, been going at it for so long that he can hardly remember how what’s coming out of his mouth relates back to the original question. Actually, now that he thinks about it – what was the original question, again? There’ve been so many of them, since he’s been stuck here… he pauses midsentence to ponder this, then realizes with a panicked jolt that pausing is the very thing – the _only_ thing – he’d been meaning not to do. _Stupid_ , he berates himself, starting up again in a garbled rush about some mission or another that he’d been on in Iraq; although maybe it was really Afghanistan that time, he’s not sure… but it’s fine, the details are irrelevant.

The whole story’s irrelevant in reality, because none of this is going to matter soon.

Tim resolutely pushes that thought away; it doesn’t serve him any good. It might be true – no, it is true, there isn’t any ‘might be’ about it – but he discards the idea nonetheless. The truth is useless to him right now, and he doesn’t have time for anything other than that which could prove helpful.

_You are running out of time, period… and you know help ain’t coming._

Tim rocks his head backward with a sharp, sudden movement, thumping the base of his skull hard against the wooden chest of drawers behind him. It’s enough to quiet the mutinous voice in his head – the voice of reason, he thinks, the one that sounds a little bit like Art and Rachel, and a lot like his sergeant from back in the day – although the voice coming out of his mouth continues on without a hitch. It occurs to him that he’s only barely aware of what his physical voice is saying, so he takes a moment to focus on the words as his lips form them.

“… spotter were given orders to move onto a ridge, keep tabs on a hamlet set in the valley between the mountains,” he hears himself saying. It’s some old war story; Tim couldn’t say at this point whether it’s genuinely his or not. It’s doing the job, though, keeping Walker busy for the time being, and that’s what counts.

But for how much longer can he realistically continue to delay?

He doesn’t know when it happened – he doesn’t even know how long he’s been here, sitting on this floor, because it feels like it’s been at least a couple of lifetimes – but somewhere along the way Tim realized that Walker isn’t going to kill him. He can’t say how he knows, either, because Walker definitely hasn’t communicated anything to that effect – it’s just a feeling in his gut, a surety that’s never let Tim down before and one he knows won’t fail him now. Maybe it’s because if Walker was planning on killing him, he would have done it already – maybe it’s just because Tim knows that there has to be some kind of bizarre point to this whole exercise, one that depends on him eventually making it out of this house. He glances across the room at the pale, bloody heap of a woman barely moving on the floor in front of him, and the certainty of his own survival seems like a cold comfort.

At some point, Tim is going to run out of stories real and fake alike, or Walker is going to run out of patience, and Lauren Witt is going to die. Tim’s as certain of this as he is of his own survival, though in this instance it's a guarantee he’s much less ready to accept. And so he keeps talking, pivoting from one topic to the next in a restless onslaught because it’s all he can do – trying to buy just a little more time, just a few more minutes on the remotest chance that a miracle is about to come busting down the door to save the day.

The thought occurs to him that it may very well be too late – Tim’s not fully aware of the extent of the injuries that the woman has been dealt to this point, but he’s seen enough to know that there’s a chance she may be beyond medical help already. He can see her chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged breaths, and there doesn’t seem to be any external wounds that are bleeding all that heavily, but she’s been unconscious for some time now and there’s no way for Tim to gauge the severity of any internal damage she may have sustained. She might be half dead by now, too far gone for anyone to save…

Tim pushes these thoughts aside as well. Questions of how long she might survive are immaterial in light of the fact that she is, at least for now, still alive. All Tim has to do is keep talking, keep Walker occupied, and she’ll stay that way for as long as she can. He’d like very much to be able to do more, but it’s currently the only thing he can offer.

Visions of his arrival at the house haunt Tim like a malevolent spirit; he can see the scene almost as clearly as he sees the dreary room before him now. When he’d stood out on the porch and knocked on the front door, and she’d greeted him there, polite yet bemused… why hadn’t he led her directly out to the car then, promising to explain the situation on the way? Why hadn’t he realized that something about the place seemed off?

Because surely _something_ must have been off – there must have been some clue, some sign of the danger that was lurking within. It had to have been there, and he’d just missed it…

He remembers a young man – a kid, really – sitting in Chief Deputy Art Mullen’s office, assuring the boss that he didn’t miss. _Life sure is funny_ , the voice in his head says, and Tim knocks his skull against the drawers again.

He winds to the end of another longwinded account of his time with the Rangers, casting around for some new subject to start on – real or made up, at this point it doesn’t matter so long as it’s time-consuming – when Walker interrupts.

His voice is lower than Tim remembers from his previous encounters with the man, and it sounds scratchier, too, like his throat is lined with sandpaper; Tim supposes that it may be another in a series of mystifying efforts to conceal his identity, along with the black bandana covering the lower half of Walker’s face, the dark sunglasses blocking the top half, and the hood from his black sweatshirt pulled tight around his head. Still, there’s never been any doubt in Tim’s mind that this is indeed Ty Walker, and not just because he’s the only man on earth with the means and motive to be where he is now, doing what he’s currently doing – there’s also the fact of his size and physical build, not so easily hidden by creative accessorizing, and the intangible yet unmistakable aura of his presence, a tension in the air that Tim had first picked up on in Calhoun Schreier’s realty office so long ago. It’s the feeling of a storm coming on; the strain in the atmosphere just before the first bolt of lightning tears across the sky.

“Well, I’ve gotta hand it to you, Deputy – this has been far more enlightening than I’d dared to hope.” Walker says it in that unfamiliar, sandpapered voice, and there’s a note of finality there that makes Tim’s stomach swoop. He glances at the form of Lauren Witt lying on the floor – still alive. Time to go on the offensive, then.

“What’s with the getup?” he asks suddenly, cutting across whatever Walker was preparing to say next. Walker pauses, surprised, perhaps, by Tim’s sudden interest in conversation – it wasn’t so long ago that he’d struggled to get more than a few odd words out of the deputy marshal. When the silence lengthens, Tim can’t help but grow a bit irritated despite himself. “Oh, so you’re the only one allowed to play Twenty Questions?” he demands impatiently.

He can’t see his mouth through the bandana covering it, but Tim gets the distinct impression that Walker is grinning. “No, I suppose not,” Walker says slowly, voice still unlike his own, “although the answer to that particular question happens to be ‘all in due time’. Still, if there’s anything else you’re itchin’ to know…” He folds his arms over his chest and leans against the wall, clearly amused.

“Okay,” Tim says, and he finds that his voice is shaking. It startles him, how fast it happens – how quickly the exhaustion, steadfast determination, and sinking despair all vanish, replaced only by a roiling, seething fury.

Tim’s never viewed himself as an overtly angry man. A lethal man? Sure, there’s a fairly sizable body count that can attest to that – but in his infrequent moments of introspection he’s always considered himself more the melancholic type, less prone to general violence than to flashes of acute deadliness, and those all but lacking in emotional turbulence.

This certainly isn’t that, though, nor is it the cold yet clear-headed sense of purpose that had inhabited him when he’d hunted Colton Rhodes, waiting as good snipers do for the precise opportunity to strike. This is an anger that burns like a wildfire in his chest, that brings with it a bloodlust unlike anything he’s ever experienced – he wants to see Walker dead, but he wants to see him hurt, first. He wants to do it with his own hands.

Circumstances being what they are, however, Tim’s forced to settle for taking Walker up on his paltry offer of information. When it comes right down to it, there’s only one question he can think of that he honestly wants to know the answer to.

“What is the fucking point?” he manages to grit out from between his teeth, so low that after a few moments of silence he’s unsure whether Walker has heard him.

But it soon becomes clear that he has. Walker unfolds his arms and pushes himself leisurely away from the wall he’s been leaning against, exhaling a short, laughing breath.

“Come on, now – all that time in the sandbox and you expect me to believe you never tried playing with your food before you ate it?” Walker’s using the chastising, though not wholly unfriendly tone that veterans employ while ribbing the greener guys in their unit for their naïveté about life during wartime; it’s a tone Tim recognizes well, though it makes him seethe anew to hear Walker use it. He also recognizes the familiar, lilting cadence of Walker’s usual speaking voice; though still disguised by a bit of forced roughness, he sounds for the first time like the man Tim remembers.

He crosses the room casually enough, coming to squat in front of Tim so that their eyes are as close to level as possible, given Walker’s initial height advantage and the fact that Tim is positioned on his ass; Tim can’t see anything in the dark lenses covering the other man’s eyes besides his own muted and warped reflection. Walker lifts his hands, lowering them with careful deliberateness onto Tim’s shoulders. He squeezes, his thumbs digging painfully into the bone.

“ _This_ is the point,” Walker says, and Tim lunges at him with a furious snarl. Fastened to the wooden chest at his back, he doesn’t get very far – he pulls and twists, feet scrabbling for leverage under him, but the ropes hold stubbornly. The force of his effort causes the heavy piece of furniture to shift half an inch or so, and for a second Walker’s hands tighten at Tim’s shoulders, but the wooden chest settles once more and soon all Tim’s succeeding in doing is shredding the skin at his wrists. He gives it up then, hurling himself backwards with a frustrated sound, breathily heavily and glaring at Walker in a rage proven more or less impotent.

Walker laughs again, patting Tim’s cheek twice with one hand before standing up and moving away. Though done companionably enough, the place he touched burns like a slap on Tim’s face.

“Don’t be like that! The two of us are just getting started,” Walker announces cheerily. He’s on the other side of the room now, standing over the unconscious occupant of the home. A chill of dread shoots along Tim’s spine, stifling the blaze of anger in his gut; he’d managed to distract himself, but there are no more distractions now.

Walker’s already lifted her up, dragging the feebly stirring form over to where Tim is immobilized. He stands there, towering over Tim so that he has to crane his neck to see their faces, because he can’t look away, not now. There’s something silver glinting in Walker’s hand and Tim tries to speak, but his mouth has gone dry as desert sand. After a second it occurs to him that he doesn’t have any idea what to say anyway.

“I’ll see you real soon, Deputy Gutterson,” Walker says, abandoning – perhaps inadvertently, in the rush of things – his efforts to disguise his voice. His arm twitches, and the blade is moving across Lauren Witt’s throat; a smooth, sure stroke.

The blood comes fast, drenching him. Tim reflexively shuts his eyes and turns his head, feels it running warm and thick over his nose and mouth. He splutters and chokes on it when he tastes it on his tongue. Someone else in the room is choking too, a wet, terrible sound.

When Tim recovers enough to regain his senses, his breath still coming in bone-rattling gasps and his heart racing so fast that he dimly recognizes the possibility of passing out, Lauren Witt is dead on the floor and Walker has vanished. The voice in Tim’s head from earlier – the so-called voice of reason – seems to sigh and say: _okay… now what?_

Tim doesn’t really have an answer.

* * *

“Deputy Gutterson?”

No response.

“Deputy Gutterson.”

A little louder, though obviously trying to remain polite. Still, no response this time either.

There’s a beleaguered sigh, followed by the sound of papers being shifted haphazardly and a faint clicking noise.

“Tim!”

“Huh?” he says with a start. _Shit._

Tim realizes that he’s zoned out, once again just a few seconds too late to do him any good – he’s already been noticed. David Vasquez is eyeing him with a mixture of exasperation and sympathetic understanding; of the two, Tim greatly prefers the exasperation. He’s well versed in dealing with people who are irritated by him, but considerably less experienced in dealing with people who feel sorry for him. Vasquez cuts his gaze to the side of the table they’re sharing, where Art is seated and observing the proceedings, and the two exchange a significant look.

Vasquez sighs again, and Tim sees him reaching for the recorder placed in the center of the table. Apparently the click he’d heard earlier had been Vasquez shutting it off, because he tucks it out of sight now.

“We’ve been at it for a while – how about we take a break,” Vasquez says, with an awkward attempt at employing gentleness to soften the fact that it isn’t a suggestion.

Tim blinks. “But I was havin’ so much fun. We don’t spend enough time together, David.”

Vasquez huffs, his limited supply of patience apparently exhausted already. Tim wonders if Vasquez is like this with everybody, although he has a sneaking suspicion that he’s not. He’s sure he’s seen other people manage to have relatively normal interactions with the man on a regular basis – for some reason, though, Tim finds himself lucky to get through an average Vasquez encounter without office supplies being hurled across the room.

“You know, you act like I’m just here getting my kicks, but I’m not thrilled about this either,” Vasquez says waspishly, splaying his hands in front of him for emphasis.

“You’re right, I’m sorry – I’m sure it’s very difficult for you. You are truly doing the Lord’s work.”

“Tim– “ Vasquez stops himself and scrubs his hands down the sides of his face, breathing deeply – so, alright, maybe Tim’s not entirely without blame for some of his difficulties with the resident AUSA. The corners of his mouth twitch upward uncontrollably, and he glances away to conceal this from Vasquez – catching Art’s disapproving eye as he does. Tim clears his throat hurriedly, looking at Vasquez again and trying his best to Be Serious.

“Listen, go get some air. Or some lunch. Or both,” Vasquez says, just sounding defeated now. Tim actually finds it a little offensive – he’s not _that_ hard to put up with, Jesus – but he elects to keep this thought to himself in the spirit of cooperation. “Take some time to… unwind. We’ll come back, get this over with, and not speak until the next time you shoot somebody, God willing.”

“Fine,” Tim relents, rolling his chair away from the table theatrically and standing to go. He takes a step in the direction of the door, then turns back with an air of exaggerated nonchalance, Vasquez eyeing him warily. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know of any good couches in the building, would you? In case someone felt a fainting spell coming on? I’m asking for a friend.”

“Just get the hell out.”

The spirit of cooperation sufficiently trampled upon, Tim just gets the hell out at that point, Art following close behind. Through the double glass doors of the conference room Tim watches Vasquez collapse wearily back into his chair, eyes fixed on the ceiling in a kind of supplication to the heavens.

“He’s feeling dramatic today,” Tim comments absentmindedly.

“Yeah, well,” Art says, glancing at Vasquez for a moment, then turning back to Tim, “you’re not exactly making it easy for him. I know it’s unpleasant for you, but the debriefing is important, and it’s better for all parties involved if it gets done as soon as possible. Especially this party,” he adds as an afterthought, gesturing to himself.

“I’ve been going over it all morning,” Tim protests. It’s true – not with Vasquez the entire time, but with the various members of the critical incident response team; reportedly trained in the secret arts of ‘stress management’, their role is to assess the overall likelihood of someone blowing their brains out on federal property after experiencing a traumatic event. “And it should really go without saying that while I greatly enjoy their company, between all of ‘em my feelings are pretty much all talked out, boss.”

Art looks as though he doubts this very much. “Be that as it may, Vasquez is investigating the fugitive, not your mental health – I’d still cut it out with that shit,” he says, frowning again. “This’ll be the official record, don’t joke around.”

“Who’s joking?” Tim replies, unable to stop himself. Art’s expression grows stormy, a blend of irritation and concern, and Tim hastens to jump in front of what he knows is coming next. “Art, I told you I’m fine. I wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t.”

“And what if I think you’re full of shit”? Art replies bluntly.

“Well, I guess my response to that would be that I am a Deputy U.S. Marshal, a combat veteran, highly trained, highly skilled, and have been through more critical incidents than I can even count, so I fully appreciate the importance of managing stress responsibly and wouldn’t put myself in a position where I might become a detriment or danger to myself or others.”

To what is probably his credit, Art still doesn’t seem completely convinced. “You know, mentioning the sheer number of times you’ve been through this process isn’t half as reassuring to me as you seem to think it is,” he grouses, but it looks like he’s willing to continue trusting Tim’s judgment despite his own reservations. “Alright, go take a break, rest those tired feelings. We’ll finish up when you get back.”

Art retreats to the sanctuary of his office, and Tim turns to the bullpen. When he reaches his desk, he finds that his chair is already occupied.

“Done so soon?” Raylan asks, lifting a skeptical brow.

Tim shakes his head. “Tragically, no, but I have been ordered to take a breather by the law of the land,” he says, gesturing over his shoulder towards the conference room that Vasquez still occupies. He observes the small piles of paper clips, rubber bands, and other items scattered across the surface of his previously clear desk, presumably a result of Raylan’s fidgeting over the past few hours. “You getting paid for today?”

Raylan makes an affirmative sound in his throat. “There’s a chance I’m getting overtime, seein’ as I’m on assignment away from my home office – I’m not actually sure how it all works.”

“And they say waste is rampant in law enforcement,” Tim drawls. Raylan makes another affirmative humming noise, snapping a rubber band between two long fingers. Tim tilts his head toward the double doors leading out of the office. “Coming to lunch?”

An amused expression passes over Raylan’s face and he nods, unfolding himself at length from Tim’s chair. They cross to the exit, stopping just outside the doors to wait for an elevator after Tim mashes the button.

“Any word on Walker?” Tim asks as they wait, trying to come off as casual and probably missing the mark by a considerable margin. He concentrates his focus on the opposite wall, not wanting to make eye contact with Raylan just now.

Sure enough, he feels Raylan’s searching gaze sweep over him. After a brief hesitation, he says, “They’re running down a few leads from the tip line, but nothing that they really expect to pan out.” Tim nods once, staring hard at a spot on the wall ahead of him. “Could always get lucky,” Raylan adds, though it lacks any real conviction.

Tim nods again, hoping it doesn’t look too stiff.

“Well,” Raylan says a bit heavily, as though weighing some kind of difficult decision, “I suppose there’s always the other option.”

Tim’s head snaps around and he eyes Raylan sharply. “What other option?”

“The one where you commandeer a vehicle, ride out on your own to hunt him down. You could probably be gone an hour or two before Vasquez started asking questions, three or four before he convinced Art to do anything about it. Leaving the badge is optional,” he adds magnanimously.

“Oh, not joining me on this adventure, are you?”

“Lord, no,” Raylan says emphatically with a wave of the hand, “I have a reputation to maintain, after all. This is your show.”

“You know what, promise not to sue me for copyright infringement afterwards, and maybe I’ll consider it.”

The elevator arrives and they step inside, Raylan smirking. As the doors slide slowly shut before them, Tim wonders idly about their destination – he has to return to Art and Vasquez to finish the debriefing, so beer for lunch is out… maybe a burger? Although there is that new Mexican place across the street, and he could go for some tacos… he’d ask Raylan for his input, but he doesn’t really feel like trying to explain why a vanilla cone is unsuitable for an adult meal…

“Then again,” Raylan says slowly, interrupting Tim’s train of thought, “I’m sure we could think of something better to do with a free hour, if we put our minds to it.”

Something in his voice makes Tim turn his head, and he finds Raylan looking down at him with an eyebrow arched in unmistakable proposition. Tim feels his jaw drop half an inch.

“Wait, are you serious?” Raylan’s suggestive expression falls, replaced by one of rapidly increasing exasperation. Tim has to admit it’s not his best, sexy banter-wise.

“Are _you_ serious?” Raylan fires back – he actually seems a little offended.

“I didn’t wanna assume… I mean, with the booze and the… unusual circumstances…” Tim closes his mouth, tries to shake the cobwebs out of his head, and starts again. “Following an – uh – unexpected drunken encounter with an acquaintance, I’ve found the most tactful course of action is usually to see if they try to talk about it, or just quietly let things go back to normal.”

“And how’s that working out for you?”

“Well, they usually choose the second option, so pretty well. Depends on your perspective, I guess.” For the duration of the day thus far Tim had assumed that Raylan, like many before him, had elected to move on from last night – not necessarily pretend it never happened, but just… move past it. By the time Tim had woken up this morning, Raylan had been ransacking his kitchen in search of coffee, and until now neither of them had mentioned what had transpired in Tim’s bedroom.

Raylan just shakes his head. “Have there been a lot of unexpected drunken encounters with your acquaintances in the past?”

“You’re one to judge,” Tim shoots back, crossing his arms defensively over his chest. The sudden turn in the conversation has thrown him off balance, but a thread of indignant annoyance creeps in now, and he tries to center himself around the sanctuary of the familiar feeling. “Don’t quite recall you shufflin’ round here when we worked together, celibate as a nun.”

Raylan sighs heavily in reply, leaning across Tim to tap the emergency stop switch. The elevator jerks to a halt and a loud ringing sound fills the compartment.

Tim rolls his eyes, arms falling back to his sides. “Why do you always –“

Raylan never gets to hear what he always does, though; he cuts Tim off by crowding him against the compartment wall and lowering his mouth to Tim’s in a calm yet commanding kiss. It feels different than it did the night before, lacking the spicy taste of bourbon and the sense of urgency, but Tim’s somewhat surprised to learn that this difference doesn’t worsen the experience. Quite the opposite, actually – with sobriety comes finesse, and Tim’s all too aware of the alternating pressure of Raylan’s lips on his, the skillful application of tongue, the firm insistence of Raylan’s hand on his hip, pressing him hard against the wall…

A minute that feels like a full hour later, Raylan withdraws, tapping the emergency stop switch and resuming his place in the center of the elevator. As it grinds into motion once more, the only evidence of anything having happened at all is the self-satisfied twist in the set of his mouth.

Tim, for his part, isn’t so immediately composed – he’s left leaning against the wall, mouth hanging slightly open, heart racing in his chest. After another moment or two he pushes himself fully upright, coming to stand beside Raylan. He quickly deliberates something and, making his mind up, leans forward to press the button for the basement. Raylan shifts, shooting him with a curious look, but doesn’t ask any questions.

The doors open on the first floor lobby with Tim and Raylan standing there in what Tim sincerely hopes is a believable imitation of official people going about official courthouse business, until the doors slide shut again and the car descends further. When they arrive, Tim leads them out of the elevator and into the cramped basement hallway. Soon it becomes clear that they’re heading towards a closed door at the end of the hall.

“Evidence lockup?” Raylan asks, sounding uncertain.

“Mmhm,” Tim nods. “After Weaver’s escape to Cancun or… wherever the hell he ran off to, it took ‘em three months to fill the position, and then that guy had to leave after about six months on the job. Testicular cancer,” he adds, and Raylan winces.

“That happened while I was still here?”

Tim nods again.

Raylan frowns, his eyes growing distant. “I don’t remember anything about that.”

“Oh, yeah,” Tim says, feigning a thoughtful look. “Come to think of it, you might’ve been busy playing Rooster to Boyd Crowder’s Lucky Ned that week. I just started to lose track of that whole thing for a little while there, you know?”

Raylan’s frown deepens and he glares at Tim a bit sourly. Bolstered by this, Tim pushes the door to the evidence room open.

“Anyhow, it was another long while before they hired someone else – younger guy that time, got fired when someone complained about the basement reekin’ and they found an ounce of Afghan Kush in his drawer.” Raylan snorts at this. “And then the girl after that just stopped showing up one day. Nearly filed a missing persons before her mom reached out to say she’d eloped to Texarkana. Somethin’ about roller derby, I think.”

Tim watches Raylan’s face carefully, identifying the exact moment Raylan goes from morbidly curious to firmly decided that he’s happier the less he knows. Tim grins, feeling better than he has all day.

“Apparently they gave up after that, ‘cause since then there hasn’t been anyone down here. Someone on Reardon’s staff keeps the key to the cage upstairs, and then there’s our keys to general evidence, of course,” Tim says, pulling his keychain out of his pocket.

“Ain’t that some kinda violation of protocol?” Raylan asks, head tilted to the side.

“Shit, probably. But I heard just the other day that there’s something like sixty federal judiciary vacancies across the country that Congress can’t be bothered to fill, so I s’pose Uncle Sam’s got bigger issues than a missing file clerk in Lexington.”

With that, Tim slides the key home and swings the grated door to the evidence lockup open with a grand gesture, simultaneously shutting the more solid door behind them that separates the room from the hall beyond. He twists the deadbolt into the locked position for an extra degree of privacy and turns to survey their surroundings. It’s as dusty and claustrophobic as ever, cardboard boxes and clear plastic evidence bags stacked haphazardly on metal shelves that take up as much room as possible while still leaving roughly human-sized spaces for people to walk between. It’s not exactly a suite at the Ritz, but then again, this isn’t exactly that kind of affair.

Raylan’s hesitating at the entrance to the locker. He fixes Tim with an appraising stare. “Are you sure about this?”

“What?” Tim’s brows lift in incredulity. “This was your idea! Circa, like, five minutes ago.”

“I know,” Raylan says patiently.

“Remember – in the elevator, with the vaguely sexual suggestions, and–”

“I know,” Raylan repeats calmly, though Tim thinks he might’ve seen his mouth quirk at ‘vaguely sexual’.

Tim spreads his arms wide in a gesture of disbelief, though a cautious grin pulls at the corners of his mouth. “And now, what – you want me to convince you?”

Raylan steps into the locker at last, closing the distance between them with a few slow, sure strides. He leans forward, well into what Tim would consider his personal space, though Raylan refrains from touching him. Tim feels his grin falter.

“I don’t need convincing,” Raylan says, and a force as undeniable as the pull of gravity is preventing Tim from breaking eye contact with him. “I just want you to be sure.”

It occurs to Tim that he’s seen this happen before – as in, quite literally witnessed it with his own eyes. First with Ava Crowder, then with Winona – a woman who knew better than any person alive the hard truths of getting involved with the handsome deputy marshal in the hat. Tim sat at his desk and watched over the course of weeks and months as these women, one by one, made decisions in the face of Raylan’s open, intense gaze that any objective outsider would have judged as misguided at best and symptomatic of utter insanity at worst. Tim had been entertained by it then, though he wasn’t wholly unsympathetic – Raylan had certainly seemed charming, and it wasn’t so difficult to imagine someone talking themself into a mistake at his encouragement.

What he realizes now is that charm has little at all to do with it. Raylan isn’t charming, he’s intoxicating – dangerous, chaotic, enthralling as a force of nature and addictive to boot. Getting swept away by him doesn’t feel like drowning. It feels like release.

He’s still waiting for an answer. Tim’s mouth is a bit dry, and he swipes his tongue unconsciously across his lips.

“I’m sure,” he says, and means it.

“Good,” Raylan replies, placing a hand under Tim’s chin and lifting his face to Raylan’s own, kissing him like he did in the elevator. And this time, there’s no reason for them to stop.

When they finally get around to coming up for air, Tim’s satisfied to learn that he’s not the only one feeling breathless. Seizing his moment of opportunity, he gives Raylan a small shove in the chest, sending him stumbling back a few steps before his thighs hit the abandoned guard’s desk behind him. Tim pursues him closely, hands moving with practiced purpose towards Raylan’s lap; then he pauses, fingers hovering just an inch over the zipper. After a moment’s consideration he reaches instead for the gun holster at Raylan’s hip, dislodging it from the denim waistline and setting it gently on the surface of the desk. He does the same with his own holster, only after this moving to unbuckle Raylan’s belt and undo his jeans, pulling them down roughly to his knees.

Raylan’s eyes follow Tim’s movements with a sizable degree of interest, but he seems content to let Tim assume the lead. This suits Tim’s purposes just fine – without further delay he drops to his knees and takes Raylan into his mouth.

It’s an imitation of the move Raylan pulled last night. Tim’s mouth advances ever so slowly, inching up the length of Raylan’s shaft. He flicks his eyes up to Raylan’s when his lips reach the base, and he’s pretty sure that if he didn't currently have a dick in his mouth he’d probably be grinning like an idiot, so it’s most likely for the better that he does. He withdraws with the same patience, catching a glimpse as he does so of white-knuckled hands grasping the edge of the desk, supporting Raylan’s weight as he leans heavily against it. He reaches the tip once more and his tongue dances methodically around the slit, licking away the salty traces of precum that have started to bead there.

He sets one hand on Raylan’s exposed thigh, fingers digging into the solid flesh, lightly furred with a smattering of coarse, dark hair, and wraps his other hand around the base of Raylan’s dick, slippery with his own saliva. Then he begins to blow him in earnest, establishing comfortable rhythms and abandoning them just as quickly in order to take Raylan deeply again, before pulling back and working more superficially around the head. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Before too long Raylan loses either his patience or his self-control – possibly elements of both – and he starts to thrust into Tim’s mouth. A heavy hand finds its way to the crown of Tim’s head, fingers delving amongst the thicket of hair, the warm weight serving to further Raylan’s insistence. Tim presses against him with the hand on Raylan’s thigh, hard enough to leave five fingertip-shaped bruises, attempting to force him back with modest success at best. Understanding the ultimate futility of these efforts, Tim redoubles his focus on the task at hand, increasing the tempo and the frequency with which he swirls his tongue across the slit at the tip.

Raylan’s making those quiet yet seemingly uncontainable sounds that Tim first heard him make last night, and Tim discovers that he’s as infatuated with them now as he was then. He chases them, employing every trick in his arsenal to get Raylan to make them again – one more time, just a little bit louder… there it is! – over and over. When Raylan’s thrusts become increasingly jerky and erratic, Tim knows that he doesn’t have much further to go.

It’s with a small pang of regret that he swallows when Raylan comes. As far as being on the giving end goes, he’d really been enjoying himself.

Tim stands, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth and bending over to brush the dust off his pants. He hadn’t thought to put anything down on the hard basement floor before starting, and his knees are a bit sore now – well worth it though, he thinks.

He straightens up to observe Raylan, who’s given up on standing and is now sitting on the abandoned desk, jeans having slid down to his calves, dick visibly softening in the gloomy basement lighting. His chest is still heaving, though he seems to be making an effort to even out his breathing. Their eyes meet, and Tim smiles broadly.

“Wanna see how you taste?” he asks, pointing at his own mouth and waggling his eyebrows.

Raylan shakes his head, stooping to grab his jeans and pull them back up the long, lithe legs. He fixes Tim with a calculating stare as he fastens the button – though his face is flushed from the activity of a few moments before, he still manages to appear reasonably haughty.

“Not me I’m interested in tasting,” he says, pushing himself up and away from the desk.

“I dunno,” Tim says, crossing his arms and surveying their surroundings once more. “I’m not sure how I feel about getting sucked off on the clock; and inside the building, no less. Seems a little sleazy, is all. I mean, fine for you, of course. I’m just not sure I’m that kinda girl.”

“Well,” Raylan says as he advances, stopping to reach out a hand and palm the hard outline of Tim’s boner through his pants. “We’ll see about that, won’t we?”

Back on the elevator some time later, Tim leans leisurely against the compartment wall, arms folded lazily over his chest, feeling a little tipsy on afterglow. He turns to Raylan with a crooked smile.

“Huh. Guess I am that kinda girl,” he notes. Outside of Raylan’s assurances that his hair does not appear to be ‘like, I don’t know – sex-tousled, or something’, Tim’s not sure how he looks. He’s hoping any flushed skin or residual sheen of sweat can be attributed to hot wings for lunch without garnering too many questions.

Raylan shrugs, looking smug. “It would appear so.”

“God. Mom would be so disappointed.” Tim pauses, considering. “My brothers would probably be impressed, though. Maybe not that it was with another dude, but – details,” he says, lifting one arm to wave a dismissive hand before crossing it over his chest again.

Raylan casts him a sidelong glance. “Brothers?”

Tim hums. “They’re all older. Couple of half-sisters too, but who can really keep track.” Raylan doesn’t say anything, and Tim eyes him skeptically. “What?”

“Nothing,” Raylan says quickly, giving Tim a conspicuous once-over. Tim gets the impression that Raylan is reevaluating him somehow. “Always took you for more of an only child.”

“Because I seem like an only child, or because you’ve never heard about my family before?”

“I don’t know,” Raylan replies. “Either. Both.”

“See, that’s interesting,” Tim says, “because I seem to recall at least one occasion involving you, me, and a fairly drawn-out conversation about one of my siblings.”

“Bullshit.”

“Bullshit nothin’! I know for a fact – the one who got his balls caught between the slats of a wooden lawn chair.” He uncrosses one arm to gesture at Raylan, inviting him to finish the recollection, but Raylan’s disbelieving expression remains unchanged. “…Then he told his friend to grab an axe, and–“

“Oh, yeah,” Raylan cuts him off with a small wince, blinking in that semi-astonished way he does when he realizes that he’s wrong about something. Tim’s become familiar with the mannerism. “Damn, I _do_ remember that. I must’ve thought it was a cousin.”

“Nope, that was authentic Gutterson,” Tim says cheerily. “He’s got this scar, dude, it’s–“

The elevator doors glide open as they reach their floor and Tim freezes, his next words forgotten on his tongue. Through the glass of the office doors facing them he sees a flurry of movement and general activity within, though the place had been relatively calm when they’d left just a short while ago. Next to him, Raylan has gone very still – the two exchange quick, wary glances before disembarking from the elevator and crossing the hall.

The office is buzzing like a disturbed hornet’s nest, and Tim experiences the momentary urge to rest his hand on the grip of the gun holstered at his hip as they navigate through the swarm. Fighting this impulse down on the basis of it probably being somewhat ill-advised to become dependent on a firearm as an emotional crutch, Tim spots Art through the mass of bodies and makes a beeline in his direction, Raylan hot on his heels. About halfway to Art, Tim catches sight of Rachel across the room – she’s too far away for him to speak to her, though the expression she wears as she watches Tim’s progress does little to assuage the sudden, thunderous sound of blood pounding in his ears.

The look on Art’s face is frankly no more reassuring. His mouth is twisted into a grimace usually accompanied by some kind of particularly foul odor, and the expression only appears to deepen as Tim approaches.

“This seems foreboding,” Tim announces, because it seems like a simple way to ease some of the pressure building in his chest. Art sighs, which isn’t a great sign, and directs them into the conference room. All traces of Vasquez have vanished from the area, including his various folders and sheaves of paper and recording devices, and Tim wonders idly about the matter of business that could have drawn him away.

Art turns to face Tim and Raylan, working his jaw distractedly. He refrains from taking a seat at the long table – another not-so-great sign. He looks Tim hard in the eyes and Tim’s muscles tense, his body reacting as though preparing itself for a physical blow.

“We got Walker,” Art says.

“Okay,” Tim replies guardedly, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Art’s still working his jaw and his eyes dart sideways, lingering for a few moments on a spot beyond the glass of the conference room. Tim follows the line of Art’s gaze, his own eyes landing on a door leading off the main part of the office. The door to the holding cell.

Tim spins back to Art, mouth hanging open slightly. “You mean he’s here right now?”

Art nods, grimacing. Tim pivots on his heel without another word, making for the door.

“No,” Art calls after him loudly, voice tinged with warning and alarm.

Tim turns back to him, very nearly scoffing. “Art–“ he starts to say in his best impression of someone speaking calmly and reasonably, but Art just shakes his head vehemently. “There is no way I’m just–“ Tim starts to argue more vociferously, and Art cuts him off again.

“Tim, I said no,” he says, strong and clear. ‘And that’s final,’ is just sort of implied.

The defiant expression on Tim’s face indicates that he’s not quite as done with the topic as Art is, although he’s struggling to formulate a coherent response through the thick fog of outrage blanketing his thoughts. Sensing that an intervention might be useful at the moment, Raylan takes a step forward.

“What’s going on, Art?” he asks, brows drawn together in a circumspect expression. Tim’s jaw snaps shut with impatient reluctance – as far as he’s concerned the argument still isn't over, though he supposes that he’s willing to learn a bit more about whatever the hell is happening right now.

Art’s glance moves from Raylan, to a chair positioned around the conference room table, then to Tim – he appears to be considering asking him to take a seat. Tim scowls and Art evidently decides against the suggestion.

“He claims to have an alibi,” Art says eventually, and this time Tim really does scoff.

“Oh, well,” he says, throwing his hands up, “if the violent fugitive says he didn’t do it, then I guess that’s the end of it.”

“It’s not that simple,” Art says, though his glare is definitely telling Tim not to be such a dumbass. Tim narrows his eyes, challenging Art to explain what exactly is so complicated about the issue.

Art begins working his jaw again. After a moment, he says, “Walker has two witnesses willing to confirm that he was with them last night and not, in fact, murdering Lauren Witt.”

Tim’s first impulse is to ask whether these two witnesses happen to be George W. Bush and the ghost of bin Laden, followed by a perhaps unnecessary assertion that Walker is obviously just making shit up at this point. Keeping in mind both Art and Rachel’s faces when he’d walked in here, though, along with Art’s recent declaration that the matter wasn't so simple, Tim manages to resist the urge.

“He says he didn’t kill his escort from the prison,” Art continues after it becomes clear that Tim isn’t planning to interrupt. “The way he tells it, they were ambushed by two individuals who believe that Walker owes them a significant amount of money and were desperate to get their hands on it before he disappeared for good into the federal prison system.”

“What?” Tim and Raylan say together, their dubious tones nearly identical.

Art nods, grimacing like he just caught whiff of that same bad smell from before. “Walker says they killed the escort, then took him to an abandoned building and tried to coerce the money out of him overnight. Says he was able to get his hands on a cell phone today and alert the authorities while the two were bickering.”

“He turned himself in,” Raylan deadpans, and Art nods.

Tim blinks, feeling a bit stunned. He shakes his head to clear it, tries to order his disjointed thoughts. “What about these two supposed kidnappers? Where are they in all of this?”

“Talking to police,” Art responds, as if he assumed that would be the next logical question. “They all got picked up at the same time. Word is right now that their stories match Walker’s – they were the masterminds, there was no detour to murder anybody, and Walker ends up being the victim of it all.”

Tim sees a knife slicing across a throat in his head and fights the very strong desire to go storming towards the holding cell. Art will just end up stopping him again anyway, he reasons bitterly.

He’s been silent for a while now with Art and Raylan both watching him carefully, each of them trying to gauge how he’s likely to react to this series of developments. Tim’s not so sure himself, at this point – there’s one more thing he needs to know, one more missing piece to the puzzle that’s all the more glaring because it’s the one thing that Art hasn't mentioned yet, like he’s hoping that maybe he won’t ever have to.

“And what about me?” Tim asks slowly, and he can’t tell whether he’s imagining the subtle shift in Art’s expression or not. “What about the deputy marshal who saw him kill somebody?”

Tim doesn’t think he was wrong about Art hoping that he wouldn’t have to get into this with him. “You said yourself that he’d made an effort to conceal his identity,” Art explains, striking a difficult balance between his desire to be straightforward and his obvious reluctance to repeat any of this to Tim, “and it’s been suggested that the traumatic nature of the experience might have caused you to think that you recognized the assailant when you actually didn’t.”

“And?” Tim demands, because from the way Art trails off it’s obvious that’s not the only thing that’s ‘been suggested’.

“And,” Art continues, sounding simultaneously frustrated yet unsurprised that Tim can’t just leave well enough alone, “Walker’s legal counsel has made it clear that, should the matter proceed to trial, they will make a point of demonstrating that the prosecution’s sole witness has a long history of violent and traumatic experiences, and that therefore his account of what happened is necessarily unreliable.”

Tim blinks a few times, digesting the legalese. “So their defense would be that my PTSD-addled mind can’t be counted on to positively identify Walker as the man I saw.”

“They would subpoena anyone and everyone they could think of to come tell a jury about all the times you blew someone’s head off from a mile away, or watched someone you liked get their head blown off, and try to make the point that your testimony alone shouldn’t be the basis on which an innocent man – and a victim of a kidnapping, no less – gets put away for murder,” Art says, resigned to the fact that Tim won’t accept any sugarcoating.

“People here generally look on veterans pretty kindly,” Raylan muses. “Might be they don’t respond exactly how Walker’s lawyer thinks they will.”

“People like the idea of veterans,” Tim replies, voice subdued. “They don’t always do so well with the dirtier details.”

“It’s not just the Rangers,” Art adds, running a palm tiredly over the surface of his head. “There are things they could bring up from your time here, too.”

For a second Tim is sure that he feels the name ‘Colton Rhodes’ pass between the three of them, but then the moment is gone and Tim can’t tell whether it was ever really there to begin with.

“And that’ll be enough?” Raylan asks, still sounding doubtful.

Art shrugs. “Vasquez says there’s a chance it creates reasonable doubt.”

Tim exhales a humorless laugh. “He uses me to get off the Witt murder, he uses the Witt murder to get off the Stevens murder, and then he just walks.”

“No one’s talking about that yet,” Art chides. “It’s still early, and we haven’t gotten a chance to really get in there with Walker or these two other guys. We’re gonna see what else we can shake loose, and we’re gonna go from there. It’s not over.”

“Yeah,” Tim says. He doesn’t even sound convincing to himself.

“Tim,” Art says with a sigh, moving towards the conference room door, “you know how this legal shit goes. Lotta obstacles and little games. You have to be patient, let our people do their thing.”

“Yeah,” he says again. They reach the door and Art gives him a pat on the shoulder, a ‘hang in there’ sort of gesture, before dismissing both he and Raylan. Dismissing them to do what, Tim’s not sure – with Vasquez dealing with more pressing matters and Tim barred from the holding cell, there doesn’t appear to be much need for him at the moment.

“I’m gonna hit the head,” he mutters to Raylan, who nods and immediately departs, wandering in Rachel’s general direction. Tim feels a small swell of gratitude towards Raylan for understanding his desire to have some time alone and obliging without badgering him about it, but even that fleeting moment of warmth is quickly overwhelmed by the bleakness of Tim’s current mood.

He slinks out of the cramped office and down the hall to the restrooms, which are mercifully empty. As he relieves himself, he waits for the reaction that he figures must be coming – a wave of anger or despair, or perhaps that constricted feeling in his chest where it seems like his ribcage is tightening, squeezing his lungs and heart until he’s sure he’s on the point of implosion – but nothing happens. He just feels… blank.

Maybe it’s because it’s out of his hands. If there were something he could do, some sort of next step for him to take, then perhaps there’d be a sense of purpose driving him. But Art’s right, of course – there’s nothing for him to do now besides stepping aside and allowing Vasquez and his ilk to handle it, answering their questions when they ask them and testifying in front of a judge according to their direction. Tim’s direct involvement with this case is pretty much through.

At this point the best thing he can do is probably just… move on.

Tim stands in front of the bathroom mirror, pressing his palms hard into his eyes. “Jesus,” he mumbles to himself, finally moving his hands away so he can turn on the faucet and wash them. _Probably should’ve done that before rubbing them all over my face_ , he thinks as he rolls up his sleeves.

He stops. Glaring up at him from his newly exposed forearms are the fresh white bandages covering the gouges on his wrists; after falling asleep with the rope burns uncovered the night before, he’d taken a few minutes to rewrap them this morning before coming in to work. At the sight of them, a little voice in his head seems to reawaken – one that sounds awfully familiar, though based on what it’s suggesting now he thinks that when he’d referred to it as the voice of reason before, it may have been a case of mistaken identity.

 _You know_ , it says, _moving on isn’t the_ only _option_.

And like that a plan blossoms in Tim’s mind as though beamed there by some external entity, half-formed and half-cocked and certainly ill-advised, but it’s the only plan he’s got. It’s a choice, then, between this and moving on; a choice between the blankness on one hand, and a sense of purpose on the other that’s probably going to lead him directly over a cliff.

He makes up his mind, and leaves the bathroom before he has a chance to change it.

He’s thankful for all the people milling around the office now. Police, federal agents, and investigators from any number of agencies that had been involved with the manhunt for Walker – the crowd they form affords Tim anonymity, which is critical for what he means to do next. Art’s back in the conference room, surrounded by what looks like legal-types to Tim; Rachel and Raylan are distracted too, deep in conversation with one another over in one of the more secluded corners of the room. That’s good; it should be fairly simple for him to move around without drawing their attention.

He slips in through the door and moves along the edges of the room, squeezing around one cluster of people to the next, trying to limit the amount of time he spends in open space where someone he knows might recognize him. The strangers he brushes against pay him no mind – just some deputy going about his business in the office, nothing noteworthy about it given their location.

He’s only feet away from the door of the holding cell when a hand lands heavily on his shoulder. Thinking himself caught, he turns to face them with a defiant expression – only to find himself looking into the wide, sympathetic eyes of Deputy U.S. Marshal Nelson Dunlop.

“How you holding up, Tim?” Nelson asks, patting Tim’s shoulder again. Tim eyes the hand with a lifted brow, and Nelson hesitates, letting it fall to his side a little unsurely.

“Oh, you know,” Tim says, shifting to one side so that if Raylan or Rachel choose to glance in this direction, all they’re likely to see is Deputy Dunlop’s back.

Nelson nods in understanding. “It can be tough, feeling like you’re sitting on the sidelines when all you want is to be a part of the action. I know I definitely get that around here sometimes.”

“Sure.” Art still looks busy with the suits in the conference room – Tim doesn’t think he’ll be leaving any time soon.

“But I think we have a great team around here,” Nelson assures him, “and they’ll make sure it all turns out the right way.”

“Yeah – listen, Nelson, I kinda got a thing–“

“Oh, sure,” Nelson says happily. He looks like he’s thinking about trying to pat Tim on the shoulder again, and he actually half-raises his arm before apparently thinking better of it. “Well, if you ever need someone to talk to…”

“Okay,” Tim replies distractedly, and Nelson smiles before moving to return to his desk.

The path now clear, Tim closes the remaining distance between himself and the door of the holding cell. With one last look around to make sure no one’s watching him, he opens it a crack and slides inside.

He’d never admit aloud to taking a second or two longer than strictly necessary to close the door, buying himself a little extra time before he has to turn around, but he’s pretty sure it happens. Truth is, he hadn’t really considered what to do once he reached this point. He feels a bit adrift, not entirely sure of his next move. Unfortunately these few stolen seconds haven’t birthed any new ideas, either.

 _Oh well_ , he thinks, and turns around.

Ty Walker is sitting in a basic metal chair, cuffed hands resting on the table in front of him. He’s wearing a stereotypical orange jumpsuit, probably the same one he wore when he escaped from prison. His face – uncovered now, and still bearded the way Tim remembers – is turned to Tim’s, his eyes wide with shock. He didn’t think to see Tim here, or at least not yet; Tim assumes he probably also didn’t think to see him clearly sneaking through the door.

The shocked expression doesn't last, though; after a beat, Walker’s face splits into a pleasantly surprised smile.

“Oh... Deputy Gutterson, right? I think I remember you,” he says in a lilting, cheerful cadence. Tim stares at him, not moving for a few moments from his spot in front of the door.

And then all of the sudden he’s walking forward with quick, purposeful strides, hand flying to the gun at his hip, ripping it from its holster. Walker’s eyes widen again, and the startled expression returns.

Tim cocks back his arm and strikes, smashing the heavy metal butt of the weapon into Walker’s nose with a satisfying crunch of bone followed by a torrent of bright, red blood.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE. and my new year's resolution will be for the next chapter not to take 4 months. i still use that notes page on my tumblr for progress updates, for the next time ur wondering "no really did she actually abandon it this time????" if ur interested OKAY THANKS.

The blood pounding in his ears goes nicely, Tim thinks, with the blood pouring down Walker’s face, overflowing around the cuffed hands Walker’s raised to his broken nose in an abortive attempt to stanch the flow, falling in thick red streams onto the front of his orange prison jumpsuit. Walker’s still stunned by the blow, not really reacting other than holding on to his mess of nose, so Tim presses his advantage; he seizes a fistful of the rapidly dampening jumpsuit in the hand not occupied by his service weapon and hauls Walker out of the straight-backed metal chair, flinging him unceremoniously towards the wall of the holding cell.

He wouldn’t say that he’s lost control of himself, necessarily, or at least not in the sense that he’s acting without any thought of consequence. On the contrary, there’s a certain flutter in his chest caused entirely by the knowledge that he is in fact crossing a line here – and not so much crossing it, he revises, as barreling over it at great speed with only a casual flip of the bird to acknowledge that he was even aware of the line to begin with. But the flutter isn’t caused by fear or worry of the inevitable repercussions – and there will be repercussions, Tim knows, possibly to the extent of the forfeiture of his position with law enforcement. Rather, he’s pretty sure the sensation is caused by unbridled excitement. 

Because sure, he’s fucking up – fairly spectacularly, at that – but the damage has already been done. Spatters of Walker’s blood on the various surfaces of the room are evidence of that, and at this point the consequences for his actions will be what they will. Tim’s committed to this fuck up now.

Between now and the time of his eventual reckoning, though, lays nothing but opportunity. He’s here, and Walker’s here, and in these fleeting moments he can do exactly as he likes, his bloodlust and creativity serving as the only limits on his conduct. This knowledge liberates him, invigorating him with a heady, powerful sense of freedom, and Tim revels in it even as he recognizes the potential for unmitigated disaster.

Walker’s making these wet, snuffling sounds as the blood from his nose fills his sinuses and pours down the back of his throat, disrupting his ability to draw a clean breath. This struggle gives Tim an idea, and he moves forward rapidly. Walker’s leaning heavily against the wall, but even without standing straight up he retains an advantage in height. Tim remedies this by swiping Walker’s legs out from under him with a sharp kick at the ankles, preventing him from hitting the ground by laying a forearm across his throat as he falls, pinning him to the wall.

The sounds of labored breathing quickly evolve into choking in earnest, as the pressure Tim applies to Walker’s windpipe combines with the effects of the blood flowing into his esophagus and larynx. His hands, cuffed as they are, scrabble uselessly across Tim’s shirtfront, and his eyes – growing more bloodshot by the moment – are bulging from his skull. Tim ignores the blood as it flows over Walker’s chin and down onto his own arm, staining the white bandages at his wrist with a fresh red color.

Tim leans in close, mouth splitting into a Cheshire grin. “This seems fair, right?” he asks, no louder than a whisper, and he pushes hard with the arm at Walker’s throat, rewarded for his efforts with a fresh wave of gasping, choking attempts to breathe. “I figure it’s your turn to find out what choking on your own blood feels like,” he says, and his voice sounds ragged to his own ears.

Walker’s fingers close briefly around Tim’s other wrist, hanging at his side. Tim shakes him off irritably and, still holding the gun with which he’d shattered the bridge of Walker’s nose, plunges his hand hard into Walker’s solar plexus. The choking sounds die away completely, though Walker’s mouth gapes open like he’s doing an impression of a fish out of water, eyes popping in their sockets.

“You know, I think I’m starting to understand what you meant,” Tim hisses, as Walker’s eyelids start to flutter alarmingly, “about _this_ being the point.” The skin of Walker’s face is turning a gruesome motley of red, blue, and purple under the thick coating of blood, and Tim wonders idly how far he’s actually willing to take this. He tends to leave the lawyering to Vasquez and company, but his own understanding of criminal justice is sufficient enough for him to realize that brutalizing a suspect in custody, while perhaps not an ideal practice, is certainly preferable to murdering said suspect in cold blood only ten or twenty feet away from a room full of cops and assorted federal agents.

He knows this, he thinks, watching dispassionately as Walker’s blood steadily drenches his sleeve. He understands what it would mean to kill Walker in this room. And yet he can’t quite seem to force himself to let go. 

Tim notices a shift in the atmosphere of the holding cell just about a half of a second before two large hands land on his shoulders and yank him roughly backward. He staggers, hitting the table in the center of the room hard enough to bruise a spot on his back just above his left hip, but is relatively unsurprised to find himself looking up into Raylan’s agitated face. Tim meets his gaze boldly – so his fleeting moments with Walker are up, and now come the consequences. He supposes that he’s fortunate not to have killed him after all, though the thought stirs a twinge of regret in the pit of his stomach. Raylan’s eyes narrow, like he’s managed to pick up on this sentiment telepathically, and Tim’s face flushes slightly. It’s time to come back to the real world, where murder is presumably a bad thing. 

“Put it away,” Raylan orders, turning then to survey the state of the prisoner. Walker’s certainly worse for wear; his nose is twisted grotesquely and already beginning to swell, blood is smeared across his face and torso and still falling rather freely from his nostrils, and he’s gulping down desperate mouthfuls of air as his hands massage his throat, but he is alive for all of that. This appears to be sufficient for Raylan’s purposes, and he leaves Walker sitting on the floor where he’d collapsed after Tim was forced to release him. He turns back to Tim and scowls, advancing on him quickly. He grasps Tim around the elbow and gives him a small, insistent shake.

“Tim, put that away!” Raylan orders again, and Tim blinks uncomprehendingly. Raylan jerks his chin towards Tim’s other arm, and all at once Tim is aware of the weight of his gun, still grasped firmly in his hand. He obeys mechanically, securing the weapon in its holster, and a tiny bit of the tension across Raylan’s shoulders seems to dissipate, though he still appears plenty on edge.

“How’d you know?” Tim asks flatly, and Raylan laughs, harsh and humorless. Jesus, he _is_ pissed.

“Gimme a little bit of credit,” he says, tone venomous, although that doesn't really answer Tim’s question.

Right on cue, another voice adds, “He thought he noticed the door to the cell closing. And you didn’t come back from the bathroom.”

Tim’s head turns so fast that he’s lucky not to have snapped his neck, and he sees Rachel hovering near the door. Her brows are lifted faintly, the remnants of an expression of surprise, but her eyes are shrewd and observant. Tim hadn’t even known she was standing there.

Raylan, distracted momentarily, loosens his grip on Tim’s elbow. His hand drifts vaguely down the length of Tim’s forearm, clenching involuntarily as the texture of Tim’s sleeve suddenly changes. He withdraws his hand and gazes at it in some bemusement, shiny and red with blood that’s soaked the arm Tim had pressed against Walker’s neck. After a moment, the expression in his eyes hardens.

“The hell’re you thinking?” he asks, fixing that hard gaze on Tim’s face once more.

The last vestiges of that heady sense of freedom he’d felt upon entering the room evaporate completely now, and Tim feels himself deflate in its sudden absence. “I wasn’t thinking,” he mumbles, because it seems simpler than trying to explain.

Raylan, though, has never put much stock in simplicity. “That’s bullshit,” he says angrily, poking a sharp finger into Tim’s chest. Tim lifts his eyes to meet Raylan’s again, reluctance mingling there with defiance. Raylan glares back, shifting his weight from his right foot to his left in a restless kind of movement.

“That is bullshit,” he repeats stubbornly.

“What do you want from me?” Tim snaps back at him, and an infuriated heat begins to rise in Raylan’s cheeks.

Some loud throat clearing coming from behind Raylan’s back interrupts the budding argument. Raylan turns, and both he and Tim manage to catch the tail end of Walker spitting a large glob of bloody saliva onto the floor of the holding cell, his puffy eyes squinting distastefully at the spot where it lands. When Raylan turns back to Tim, the fight hasn’t quite gone out of him, but it’s at least subsided for the time being.

“Come on,” Raylan mutters, placing his hand on Tim’s elbow again and tugging him firmly towards the door. Tim’s gaze lingers on Walker, but he allows Raylan to tow him from the holding cell, figuring he’s in deep enough shit as it is. Rachel watches them as they go, sharp-eyed but silent. Tim’s last glimpse of her before he leaves the room is of her heading towards Walker – presumably to lift him back up into his seat, though Tim’s through the door before he can verify this assumption for sure.

Not much has changed in the main body of the office, which tells Tim that Raylan and Rachel were able to make their move to the holding cell discreetly. _It won’t last_ , Tim thinks dejectedly. Soon everyone will have heard what’s happened, and at that point…

A weight seems to be slowly settling across Tim’s chest and shoulders, one that feels – if not permanent – then at least like it’ll be making itself comfortable there for the foreseeable future. Maybe Raylan gave him a little too much credit after all – he hadn’t been thinking, not about this part, not really. He hadn’t wanted to, convinced that the satisfaction gleaned from his private meeting with Walker would be well worth the eventual consequences. Now on the other side of that rendezvous, such as it was, Tim’s not sure that he’s as satisfied with the results as he thought he might be – and with the thought of everyone in the packed office about to know what he’s done, the cost is starting to look a little steeper to him, too.

Raylan pulls him along the edge of the room unnoticed, heading for Art’s office. Art is still occupied in the conference room, but Tim feels him watching the pair of them, following their progress suspiciously; Tim’s never hated those glass walls as much as he does right now. Art clearly smells a rat, but he can’t tear himself away from his business without drawing an inordinate amount of attention to the pair of them. It seems Tim’s been granted a reprieve, however brief it might end up being.

Once through the office doors, Raylan finally releases his grip on Tim’s arm. Tim collapses heavily into a seat, staring blankly ahead of him. Raylan just stands there, not saying anything; after a few moments Tim drags his gaze upward, seeking and finding Raylan’s eyes. The tryst in the basement feels like it happened a thousand years ago, not earlier this very afternoon – looking at Raylan now, Tim would wager that he’s thinking something similar.

They stay that way until the meeting in the conference room draws to a close, only a couple of minutes later – Tim imagines that Art found some excuse to wrap up the proceedings early, his attention almost entirely occupied with the deputy marshals waiting in his office next door if the constant darting of his eyes in their direction is anything to go by. Tim sighs, scratching distractedly at his left temple. This must be what condemned men awaiting the firing squad feel like just before the first trigger is pulled.

As the last of the suits file out of the conference room, Raylan glances from Tim to Art, sets his jaw, and leaves the office without a word. Tim watches with bleak curiosity as he enters the conference room before Art can exit it. He can’t hear what’s being said, but their body language speaks for itself – Raylan’s hands are set on his hips, head angled slightly downward as if he’s hoping that the brim of his hat can shield him from the coming unpleasantness. Art’s eyes flick away from the man standing in front of him, through those goddamned glass walls to where Tim sits in his office, then back again. His face grows stonier the longer Raylan speaks, and after a while he sets two closed fists on the conference room table before him, bracing his weight there as he appears to take several deep breaths. Then he’s pushing himself up and brushing around Raylan brusquely, who turns and follows with a grim expression.

“Tell me he’s got it wrong,” Art says without preamble as he enters his office, Raylan tactfully shutting the door behind them. “Tell me you’ve been behaving yourself and that this is all a misunderstanding.”

Tim shakes his head, though it ends up being an unnecessary gesture – Art’s eyes alight on his bloodstained arm and his expression tightens with the wordless confirmation of what Raylan must have explained to him in the conference room. Art spins on his heel and paces restlessly around the office, rubbing his jaw with his right hand. He comes to a stop in front of his desk, turning quickly like he’s finally settled on something to say, but when he looks at Tim indecision seems to come upon him again and he simply stands there, silent and glaring. It’s not often that Art is so infuriated with someone as to be stuck speechless – under wildly different circumstances, Tim might be mildly impressed with himself. 

“What an incredibly massive fuck up this is,” Art finally says, gritting the words out between his teeth. Tim assumes that the only reason he’s not screaming is in the interest of discretion, though the self-control is obviously the result of a great amount of effort on Art’s part.

“Fair enough,” Tim replies, because it really is.

“ _This is not–_ “ Art yells, fragile composure momentarily forgotten as he slams an open palm on his desk. A few curious heads turn towards the office in the room beyond, and Art pauses for a breath, absolutely glowering at Tim now. “This is not a fucking game, Tim,” he says, voice hoarse with the effort of controlling his volume, and at this Tim feels his own hackles rising. For the second time in about twenty-four hours the sickly sweet stench of blood is emanating thickly from his clothing, the phantom sound of someone gagging on the blood in their throat ringing in his ears – he’s out of the chair before he’s even consciously aware of the decision to stand up, hands balled into tight fists at his sides.

“You think you need to tell me that? After what happened yesterday?” Tim hisses, voice shaking with barely restrained anger.

“I don’t know _what_ to tell you!” Art exclaims, rising without hesitation to Tim’s challenge. “I really don’t! I expressly tell you to stay the hell away from Walker, to let the people whose job it is to handle it do what they need to do – clearly that meant nothing to you. You tell me – what did you say, about being ‘a danger to yourself and others’–“ Tim’s jaw clenches so hard that he hears his teeth grinding together, “–so evidently being honest with me is of no importance to you. Why don’t you let me know– tell _me_ what I should tell you to keep you from doing whatever you damn well please anyway!”

“You know that it’s personal between me and him–“ Tim starts to argue, but Art cuts him off.

“And this isn’t the wild fucking west anymore! There are laws, Tim, and a justice system, and you don’t get to decide that they don’t apply to you just because–“

Now it’s Tim’s turn to interrupt. “Oh, come on. Didn’t you just get done telling me that he’s orchestrated this whole thing to make sure he walks? He probably would’ve been a free man by the end of the week, there was never gonna be a trial.”

It looks like all of the blood in Art’s body is rushing to his face, such is his utter fury at the moment. “You made damn sure of that, didn’t you? You know, I might’ve anticipated certain issues with you given your background, but hell if I ever thought sheer stupidity would be one of ‘em!”

“Art,” Raylan protests, and Tim isn’t sure if it’s an attempt to come to his defense or whether Raylan is just trying to remind Art to keep his voice down. If it is the latter, then it’s far too late in any case – they’ve essentially been shouting in each other’s faces for the better part of a minute, and Tim doubts that there’s a soul in the courthouse who hasn’t heard them by now. 

If nothing else, Raylan’s interjection does serve to break the head of steam that the argument had been gaining – Art’s still glowering at Tim and Tim glares right back, each trying to decide whether it’s worth getting back into it, but ultimately it feels as though the moment has passed. Art turns his back, hovering over his desk in apparent thought and frustration, and Tim’s shoulders sag a bit in response to the ceasing of open hostilities. Raylan watches them both closely, but isn’t inclined to say anything else.

When Art turns to face him again his expression is considerably cooler, though his cheeks remain splotched with the emotions of a few moments before. “You’re suspended,” he says, at normal volume, “effective immediately.”

“Yes, sir. I figured, sir,” Tim replies, and for an uncertain moment he thinks he may have succeeded in provoking the fireworks again.

But Art’s a professional and a veteran of these kinds of things, and once he’s decided something is over, it’s not so easy to rile him. A vein pulsing smoothly in his neck is the only external indication of what must be a formidable internal desire to throttle Tim. After a few silent beats, Art turns around again, this time taking the circuitous route around his desk in order to seat himself in the chair positioned behind it. Tim takes this as a dismissal and moves to go, but he’s called back before he can take a step.

“Leave the gun,” Art says. “Seeing as it may be evidence of a crime,” he adds deliberately, lowering his eyes to a few sheets of paper waiting on his desk.

The muscles in Tim’s jaw tighten, but his hand falls automatically to the holster at his hip. He draws the weapon in a crisp motion, setting it on the desktop with a heavy thud.

“Permission to be excused, sir?” It comes out sardonic, and Tim doesn’t know why he can’t just stop, already.

“Go,” Art orders, not bothering to look up at him.

Tim goes, shoulders hunched protectively against the curious gazes of the office full of onlookers who track his progress towards the exit. On his way out, he catches Rachel’s eye – she must have left the holding cell at some point during the confrontation in Art’s office. Her lips are pressed firmly together, and she looks like she wants to say something to him. Tim doesn’t stop to chat, though, and she apparently decides against trying to catch up with him as he leaves. _Must not be too important_ , Tim thinks as he steps into the elevator, the doors gliding quietly shut behind him.

Tim stands in the center of the compartment as it descends, watching the phantoms of himself and Raylan from earlier in the day out of the corner of his eye. He reconstructs the scene with such vividness that when the memory of Raylan reaches out to stop the elevator, he finds it slightly jarring that it doesn’t grind to a halt in the present moment. He feels the ghost of Raylan’s hand on his hip, pressing him against the wall, the warm firmness of Raylan’s lips on his – and suddenly the sensation changes, and he feels his arm pressed against Walker’s windpipe, Walker’s hands clawing desperately at his shirt as he suffocates.

Tim shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. It’s helpful at times like this to try and make the world a bit smaller around him – to break things down into their individual components in order to smother the feeling of being overwhelmed. _The first step is to get out of the elevator, walk out of the building, and find your car_ , a voice in his head dictates, and Tim thinks that’s probably a solid start, that he can most likely do that much. 

The elevator opens with a chime and Tim drifts listlessly into the lobby, through the front doors, and out to the world beyond. The day is bright and warm; as Tim takes in a lungful of fresh air, he finds himself wishing absentmindedly that he’d brought his pair of sunglasses to work with him. _How about one can of worms at a time, huh?_ the voice in his head suggests. _That’s fair,_ Tim thinks in response, and he forgets about the sunglasses for now. 

When he reaches his truck, the voice is back with a new set of instructions for him. _Unlock the door._ Check. _Get in, put your seatbelt on._ Check, check. _Keys in the ignition, and turn._

“Check,” Tim says aloud as the sound of the engine roaring to life fills his ears. 

 _Good,_ the voice replies. _Now drive home without killing anybody._

“Right,” Tim says sourly. He pauses then, running a hand through his hair and scrubbing down hard over his face. “It’s only crazy if you don’t know the voices in your head are actually you,” he reassures himself, pressing his palms into his eyes so that he sees stars flashing on the inside of his eyelids.

 _Whatever you say, pal,_ the voice says.

The drive back to his apartment is uneventful, at any rate, and Tim’s standing in the middle of his silent living room before he realizes that he’s not sure what he’s going to do next. He’s not even sure how long this suspension is going to last – that is, if it doesn’t evolve into a plain firing, which it very well might – and it occurs to him that his last period of extended, open-ended downtime had come and gone years ago, before he’d ever enlisted with the Rangers. It’s early in the afternoon, and he’s itching with the impulse to do something, anything – but there’s nothing to be done, short of serving his suspension and… waiting.

He spins on his heel, marching in the direction of the kitchen. He stops in front of the refrigerator and retrieves a beer – it’s a bit early for hard liquor, after all – then he heads back across the room, throwing a leg over the back of the couch and sliding down into a cushion. He picks up the remote and thumps the power button, flipping randomly through the channels and stopping on the first thing he sees that isn’t a commercial.

It’s one of those nonfiction crime procedurals, the ones that focus on the first few days of a homicide investigation, from the discovery of a body through to the eventual identification of a suspect and subsequent arrest. _Typical_ , he thinks, but he turns up the volume anyway and takes a long sip of his beer, resolute in his efforts to drown the feeling of nervous regret bubbling in his gut.

It’s not that he regrets what he did to Walker – as far as Tim’s concerned, Walker deserves that and significantly more. Nor has the rationale for his actions been much altered – he still maintains that Walker was most likely going to be released with or without his intervention. But something has changed in the short span of time since Raylan pulled him from the holding cell, even if he can’t quite place his finger on what it is. Maybe it’s partly a result of the dressing down he received courtesy of Art; maybe it comes as a consequence of the violation of a more personal moral code, the same code that’s drawn him to the side of the ‘good guys’ throughout his life when he’s had ample opportunity to go down darker roads, the one that’s continually found productive outlets for his worst impulses. Whatever the reason, Tim is unsettled by the events of the afternoon in a way he hadn’t anticipated beforehand, and he’s torn between the desire to reflect on it further and the urgent need to just stop thinking about it, for his sanity’s sake.

Several hours and a couple of beers later, though, he finds himself in more or less the same situation. He’ll grow frustrated and decide that enough is enough, focusing all his attention on whatever’s on the television – but the roiling, anxious thoughts keep nagging at him, until he stops suddenly and realizes that another half hour has gone by where he’s done nothing but stare blankly at the screen, distracted entirely by retreads of the same arguments and worries and internal monologues that distracted him half an hour ago, and half an hour before that. He’ll try to clear his mind, telling himself that this time he’s _really_ just going to stop, determined to focus on the television and empty his head for a little bit, give himself a moment to rest – and it works, right up until it doesn’t. And at that point the cycle begins anew.

He’s seriously considering making the jump to straight bourbon when there’s a knock at the door. His hand moves reflexively to his hip, but his gun is no longer there, something he only remembers when his fingers touch skin where there should be a leather holster. He swallows around the fresh reminder of the day’s events and stands to go answer the door, figuring that in all likelihood it won’t be someone who needs to be met with a weapon; and if it is, then at this point he’s pretty much willing to take his chances.

 _Probably Raylan,_ he reasons as he closes the distance to the door. It’s a process of elimination as much as anything else – there’s no one he can think of who has reason to come here except Raylan. _Also no one else who knows where this place is_ , he thinks, pulling open the door. 

The greeting he’d prepared dies on his lips, and he blinks several times in an effort to regain his composure. “Oh,” he says, in a tone resting somewhere between disappointment and relief. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

Rachel lifts one fine brow, arms crossed loosely over her chest. “There someone you _were_ expecting?” she asks.

“No, I just–“ Tim starts to answer, but he cuts himself off with a small shake of the head. “No,” he says again, settling for simplicity. Rachel observes him with a look of mild curiosity, but evidently decides to let it go.

“Um,” Tim says after a moment passes and Rachel appears no closer to announcing her intentions, “did you want to come in?”

“Yes,” she says. She takes a step forward and Tim automatically stands aside. “I’ll also take one of those,” she adds as she passes, gesturing to the bottle of beer still in Tim’s hand. He gapes after her, though if she’s aware of it she appears unfazed, settling herself comfortably on his sofa. Tim shakes his head once more to clear it and shuts the door.

“I really wanna find out how everyone knows where I live,” Tim mumbles as he makes his way to the fridge, pulling out two more bottles.

“What’s that?” Rachel calls from behind him.

“Nothing,” he says, a little louder. He circles back around to the couch, handing Rachel her beer and taking a seat in the adjacent lounge chair. Rachel takes an obliging sip and then refocuses her attention on Tim, holding the bottle still in her lap. Tim meets her gaze squarely, fingertips playing with the edge of the label on his own bottle.

“So,” he says after another quiet moment passes, “am I fired or something?”

Rachel’s lips twitch slightly. “I wouldn’t know – I’m not the boss anymore,” she says wryly. “But if I had to take a guess, I’d say probably not.”

“Why’s that?”

“I think if you were going to get fired, it would’ve happened already,” Rachel says with a shrug. She takes another swig from her bottle, and Tim gets the distinct impression that she’s hesitating to say something else. All at once he becomes very interested in watching his fingernails scratch away at the corner of his beer label.

“Walker will probably be out by the end of the week,” she says, and Tim exhales deeply through his nostrils. He lifts his head again and gives her a grim smile.

“And here I thought he’d be home by supper.”

“That’s what his lawyer was arguing for, but given the circumstances… well, David was able to back him down somewhat. But there’s not much he can do, long term,” she explains. Tim nods, peeling the label off his bottle entirely and crumpling the soggy sticker in his fist. She doesn’t apologize to him for breaking the news, and he’s grateful for that at least.

“I’m assuming that wasn’t your intention,” Rachel says, in a suddenly loftier tone. Tim freezes, eyes narrowing faintly as she continues, “To purposefully get him out of custody, I mean.”

“And why would that be my intention?” he asks, iciness creeping into his voice.

Rachel leans back, taking another leisurely swallow of beer. When she’s finished, she says, “Make it easier for you to kill him, if he was out on the street.”

“Could’ve just killed him today, if that’s what I wanted to do,” Tim counters.

“You could have,” she agrees. “But you wouldn’t have gotten away with it; chances are better if you go after him in the wild. You’d be a favorite suspect when they found the body, of course – _if_ they found the body – but there’d be opportunities to create doubt, especially with your history of making unseen, unheard kills.”

Tim barks out a short, bitter laugh at that. “Oh, with my history, huh? You know Art said something about that too, my ‘background’. Here I am, struggling with the implications of all this bullshit like some kinda asshole, but maybe I shouldn’t be, right? Since apparently everyone but me knew it was only a matter of fucking time before I snapped.” He jumps to his feet and starts pacing around the small living room area, mostly because he can’t stand the idea of sitting still for another second. “So you can go tell Art or Vasquez or fucking whoever that I burned out just like you all thought I would, and it’s time to go hire another ex-military head case to do Uncle Sam’s dirty work. Maybe the Service gets lucky and manages to squeeze more than five years out of the next guy before he implodes, too.”

Tim stops pacing, breathing heavily, and waits for Rachel’s retort. She doesn’t say anything, though. She just sits there, watching him patiently, an oddly kind expression playing across her features. As the quiet prolongs, she raises the bottle to her lips once more and takes a pull, dabbing at a spot on her upper lip where a fleck of foam comes to rest.

“I’m not here to fight with you, Tim,” she says eventually. “I think you’ve had enough of that today. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone believed it was a matter of time before you snapped. I think there was just some anticipation that you might need a little help, someday.”

“Is that why you’re here,” Tim says, something like a sneer in his voice, “to help me?”

“Yes,” Rachel replies evenly. 

“Well, thanks very much for the offer, but I’m pretty sure they got shrinks down at the VA, should I ever get the urge to start talkin’ feelings,” he says, tossing one hand carelessly in the air.

“Good,” she says, voice still calm, “because I’m not all that interested in your feelings. I’m going to help you get Walker.”

Tim feels his eyebrows knit together in bemusement. He doesn’t know why this takes him aback, but it does. Tim, of all people, should have expected this from Rachel; he knows better than anyone that she wasn’t made chief for nothing. For some reason he hadn’t been thinking about her that way – he hadn’t been thinking about much of anything, outside his own anger.

He realizes that he’s been standing there for a while now without reacting, and it’s probably about time he said something.

“I don’t…” he stumbles, unsure of what to say. Impatient with himself, he shakes it off and tries again, “I don’t think there’s any way in hell Art lets me near the Walker case as long as he still has… y’know, blood flowing through his veins. Assuming I don’t lose my job, that is. And I’m not entirely convinced that’s not gonna happen.”

“Please don’t insult me,” Rachel snaps, sounding annoyed with Tim for the first time since she got here. “Somehow, someway, you will end up going after him. I figure if accepting that now and offering some assistance keeps you from doing it in a way that’ll land you in prison or worse, it’s a good day’s work.” She seems to remember all at once that she’d been making an effort not to get confrontational and sighs, leaning back into the couch cushion. “Because I don’t think you’re imploding, Tim,” she says, a little gentler, “I just don’t think you’re acting very much like yourself right now.”

Tim shifts his weight restlessly from foot to foot, then makes up his mind. He sits down again and takes a swallow of beer. “I’m not myself,” he mutters, looking at Rachel’s face but falling just short of her eyes.

“You’re letting your emotions cloud your judgment,” she says, still gentle – but firmly enough that he knows it’s not really a suggestion. “And you can’t let that happen, not with someone like this. He will ruin you if you let him.”

“I know,” he says, meeting her gaze now. “I do know that. I just don’t know– I’m not sure if I can control it this time, Rachel. As soon as Art told me he was in the building, as soon as I knew… it _consumed_ me. I couldn’t stop myself.”

That’s what he’s been struggling with for the past few hours, he feels fairly certain of it now; that he does know right from wrong (even if his experience has been that ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are simple ways of putting it, oftentimes), that he was well aware of the consequences – and that this thing between he and Walker had made him turn his back on that. His eyes were open, but in that moment he saw nothing but red. It’s unsettling for him, thinking about the places that could lead.

But Rachel just shakes her head. “Of course you can control it. Of course you can. You do it all the time.”

Tim scoffs derisively.

“No, I’m being serious,” Rachel continues insistently, not giving Tim the opportunity to interrupt her. “You’re not great because you’re some super sniper robot who takes the shot, puts the rifle away, and feels nothing. You are a good _marshal,_ Tim, and it’s because you _do_ get emotionally involved… yes, in your own stunted, ex-military head case kind of way. But when you’re at your best, when you’re channeling what you feel instead of letting it overwhelm you, it focuses you – it makes your instincts sharper, it makes you more observant, smarter. It makes you better.”

Tim’s looking down into his lap, watching his thumbs fiddle around the neck of his beer bottle. He wishes that he’d waited a little longer to mess around with the label – at least then it would look like there was something there to occupy his attention rather than it just being obvious that he’s avoiding Rachel’s eyes again. He feels her watching him, though, and after a few moments he’s gathered the willpower necessary to look her in the face once more.

“I thought you said we weren’t gonna talk feelings,” he finally says.

“Just shut up and think about what Walker’s shown you so far. Think about who he is, what he wants,” she says, sounding slightly irritated again.

At first he really doesn’t want to. Thinking about Walker feels like blood in his mouth, like his ribs constricting in his chest until his lungs burst, like wanting to put his fist through a wall or through somebody’s face. But he tries to push past that this time – faces it head-on instead of curling in on himself in defense.

“He’s like me,” he says slowly. “Or… he thinks he’s like me. Special forces, probably in the sandbox just this side of too long. Came back, realized he didn’t have any other marketable skills, and decided to go into work as a gun for hire. He sees killing as his livelihood.”

“If this is about money, then why leave you alive? Why bother with any of it?” Rachel asks.

Tim shakes his head. “Because it’s not about money. Money’s a perk, a barometer of success… like a kill count. It tells him he’s good at what he does, the fact that people are willing to pay him to do it.” 

“So he’s a sociopath. Violence for violence’s sake.” She doesn’t say it like she’s trying to lead him to a certain conclusion – she sounds more like she’s probing, genuinely trying to get Tim’s take on Walker. It occurs to Tim that this is probably one of the many points of this exercise; it’s an attempt on Rachel’s part to gain her own insight into a foe whose motives are not well understood as much as it is a morale booster for Tim.

Tim ponders this for a moment, then shakes his head. _Think about who he is._ “I mean, he probably is a sociopath, strictly speaking. But I don’t think that’s really it either – he’s not a serial killer. It’s not enough for him to attack randomly. There needs to be a point, a purpose. He has to be working towards some kind of goal.”

“He needs a mission,” Rachel interjects.

“Exactly,” Tim agrees. “He used to get his missions from superior officers, and then from Avery Markham. But then Markham got killed, and there was no one left to give orders. No chain of command.”

“Then there was the Stevens murder,” Rachel says. That brings Tim up short for a moment; that particular murder’s place in Walker’s pattern of behavior isn’t immediately clear.

“That was a hit,” he reasons slowly. “Probably trying to get back in the game, be a solider in someone else’s army. But it went south – Lauren Witt saw him do it, and Walker gets tossed into prison. I can’t see whoever commissioned the Stevens hit going to bat for him after that; there’d be no loyalty there, not after one botched job. So it’s up to him to bust himself out and tie up loose ends.”

“And he does all that,” she says. “He gets out of prison and into Lauren Witt’s house. He does all that and then, instead of killing her and making a run for it, he waits for you.”

Tim finishes his beer and sets the empty bottle aside, thinking hard. What would motivate Walker to do that, to wait for the marshals and put on a house of horrors show rather than just make the kill and go? There’s nothing clean or efficient about it – it doesn’t fit his pseudo-military _modus operandi_.

“Because Markham’s dead and he fucked up the Stevens hit,” Tim says, making the words sound revelatory. Rachel draws her eyebrows together, not quite understanding. “His last two tries to find a replacement for Uncle Sam have been disasters,” Tim hastens to explain, “complete failures. So he’s putting this whole prison break together and he realizes – he can do this. He doesn’t _need_ anyone giving him orders.”

“He can choose his own missions,” Rachel murmurs. “He can fight his own war.”

“And here’s the Marshals Service, which ruined a pretty good thing he had going with Markham and got one of his brothers killed – remember that Choo-Choo dude? It’s a perfect opportunity for him. War games – that’s what he wants.”

Tim leans back in his seat, trying to figure out how all this can help him. He has a clearer understanding of Walker now, which is all well and good – it doesn’t change the fact that Art will never let Tim anywhere near him, though. If Tim and the marshals are Walker’s targets, he’ll probably come to them of his own volition at some point; but given the results of the last time that happened, Tim’s not all that willing to just sit around and passively wait for their next encounter.

“His brothers…” Tim whispers, thinking aloud. 

“What?” Rachel presses.

“His brothers,” Tim repeats, more clearly, “that’s how we get him. Just ‘cause Walker’s self-employed now doesn’t mean he’s going it alone. He still has contacts, the guys he served with – he convinced those two ‘kidnappers’ to eat a murder charge for him, somehow.”

“I don’t think those two will flip on him,” Rachel says doubtfully. “Whatever he did – threatened their families, paid them off – it’s got them to go along with him this far. They knew they’d be facing life in prison and they did it anyway; I don’t know how much harder we can lean on them than that.”

“It doesn’t have to be them,” Tim says, waving a dismissive hand. “There are others; they had half a battalion running around with Markham at one point. They’ll be softer targets, too – Walker’s aware of himself, tryin’ not to leave any trails for us to follow, but there’s no way every single one of his men will be keeping their noses that clean. We just need to dig something up on one of them that will get ‘em to roll on him.”

“Sounds like you got it all figured out,” Rachel says appraisingly.

For a moment, Tim is actually inclined to agree with her. Then the reality of his current predicament settles around him again – his suspension, Art’s assured watchfulness upon his return, the slim chances that he’d even be able to dig something up on one of Walker’s compatriots that could possibly lead the authorities back to Walker himself.

Tim heaves a sigh. “I don’t know,” he mutters, “it’s still a long shot.”

At this, Rachel’s face splits into a wide grin. “Pretty much makes you the man for the job then, doesn’t it?”

Tim laughs – not exactly a hysterical outburst, more like a snort accompanied by a small upward tick at the corner of his mouth – but it still feels nice, like the heavy weight on his chest has lifted somewhat. “Maybe. Then again,” he says, “it’s not too late to say ‘fuck this’ and move into a different line of work altogether. Some might view this entire series of events as the universe strongly hinting at a career change.”

“Uh huh,” Rachel replies, sounding very much as though she doesn’t believe a word of what he’s saying, “and what is it that you would do instead?”

Tim shrugs. “I dunno, but there are options out there. Raylan always had such nice things to say about coal mining – maybe I’d try my hand at that.”

Rachel’s quiet for a moment, finishing her beer and turning the bottle between her hands, a pensive expression on her face. The air doesn’t feel quite as light as it did just a few seconds ago. She looks at him and asks, “What’s going on, between Raylan and you?”

There’s a not entirely pleasant swooping sensation in the pit of Tim’s stomach. He swallows, asking, “What do you mean?”

Rachel’s watching him like a hawk now, and Tim tries carefully to keep his expression neutral in response. He thinks that maybe he’s sitting too still and tries to fidget in a natural-looking way, but after doing it for a few seconds he becomes convinced that it actually looks worse than before and stops.

“In holding today, with Walker,” she elaborates, one eyebrow slightly raised. “You both just seemed… different. A little off. I’m not really sure – kind of why I’m asking.”

If this is true, Tim honestly hadn’t even noticed, though to be fair he’d been a bit preoccupied by other concerns at the time. His memories of a few hours ago are already starting to blur in a haze of blood and fury, helped along by the number of beers he’s put away since – he remembers hitting Walker with the gun and holding him against the wall, remembers Raylan pulling him off, demanding to know what he was thinking… now that he thinks about it, he and Raylan _had_ started to bicker before Walker interrupted, and then Raylan had pulled Tim out of the room. It seemed benign enough at the time, but now Tim finds himself analyzing how every word, every touch might have looked to an observer – which Rachel was, of course, though it had taken some time for Tim to realize she was there. Were they really so obvious?

“It’s… I don’t really know, Rachel. We were partners for a little while and then we weren’t, but we went through all that Harlan County insanity together and it’s not the kinda thing you’re real quick to forget. And then he showed up in that house yesterday and… it’s complicated,” he finishes, rather lamely in his opinion.

“Hm.” By the sound of it, Rachel isn’t entirely satisfied with that answer either.

A thought blooms in Tim’s mind like a mushroom cloud, and in the end Tim doesn’t know why he says it instead of stuffing it down like any rational person would at this juncture. This hasn’t exactly been a sublime day for his impulse control. 

“Plus there’s the fact that we started sleeping together,” he blurts, then holds his breath and waits.

Rachel laughs and stands up, brushing some lint off her thighs, which isn’t quite the reaction Tim expected. He exhales and grins, albeit a little uncertainly.

“Fine, fine, I’ll leave you alone,” she says, and Tim realizes that she thinks he’s joking. This is an act of divine intervention if Tim’s ever seen one, so he decides against correcting her, instead standing and holding out a hand to relieve her of her empty bottle. She gives it to him with a faint smile. “Are you two gonna be alright, at least?”

“That’s sorta the question,” Tim answers honestly. 

Rachel accepts this with a nod and an understanding touch to Tim’s elbow. “You’ll let me know if you need anything?”

“The second I run out of beer, you’ll be my first call,” he says.

Rachel just shakes her head, though the expression of good humor remains. “I’ll see you soon,” she says, and heads for the exit. Tim follows her, reaching out to close the door behind her. When she’s halfway out she stops and turns back to him. “Just be smart, okay?”

“Always,” he responds, and she goes.

Tim stands there for a long moment, looking at the shut door as if he can see Rachel walking away on the other side of it. Then he sighs, turning towards the kitchen to go deposit the bottles in the trash. The gnawing anxiety from before is missing in action now – all Tim really wants to do is sleep, something he thinks he would have struggled with prior to Rachel’s visit, but which feels invitingly possible in the present moment. He’s making a beeline for the bedroom when there’s another knock at the front door of the apartment. 

“Sweet Jesus,” he grumbles, seriously considering just ignoring it and going to bed anyway. He’s pretty sure that he knows exactly who it is this time, though, and after casting a yearning glance in the direction of his bed, he goes to answer it.

“Yes?” he offers in greeting, trying to convey as much exhaustion in the single syllable as humanly possible. Raylan is watching him with the same darkly concerned expression he wore in Art’s office, which just serves to exhaust Tim further.

Raylan works his jaw, apparently trying to decide what to say. He eventually settles on, “Rachel was here,” stating it as a declaration rather than a question. 

“Am I under twenty-four hour surveillance now?” Tim asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Do you need to be?” Raylan fires back, clearly prepared to pick up the fight where they left off back in the office. Tim sighs again, this time loud and exaggerated.

“No,” he answers simply.

“Well, okay, then,” Raylan says, sounding a bit caught off guard. “Good,” he adds, after a brief pause.

They both stand there in silence for another few moments, Tim waiting for Raylan to say something else; he’s too wiped to come up with something on his own, and he figures it’s really Raylan’s responsibility anyway, seeing as he’s the one who drove all the way over here for this. Raylan seems to realize that Tim’s waiting on him and clears his throat, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. 

“So, did Art send her over here, or…” he trails off. It’s sort of a pitiful attempt to get the conversation going, but Tim decides to show mercy and take the bait.

“Nah,” he drawls. “She saw us in the evidence room today and wanted to know how she could get in on the action.” Well, he decides to show _some_ mercy, anyway.

Raylan looks like he might choke on his tongue, which is at least an improvement over him looking at Tim like he’s worried about leaving him alone with sharp objects. “I’m fucking with you,” Tim says, and Raylan’s expression eases into lines of relief and resentment at once, “we were just talkin’ shop.” He omits the fact that he actually did try to tell Rachel about the two of them – it doesn’t feel like quite the right time to get into that particular snafu.

“Really. Talkin’ shop,” Raylan says, the words laden with suspicion.

Tim hums an affirmative. “She thinks the way to go after Walker is taking a look at his associates, see if we can shake something loose that’ll let us lean on ‘em for information about the boss. Not as direct as I’d like, but, y’know.” He shrugs. “Might keep me outta prison in the long run.”

“It might,” Raylan agrees. He glances over his shoulder as though expecting to see Rachel lurking somewhere in the shadows, but she’s long gone. “ _Rachel_ suggested this?” he asks skeptically.

Tim nods.

“Is it ‘cause she thinks you’re like a dog with a bone and figures this is the only way to make the best of it?”

“Apparently,” Tim says, a little dryly.

Raylan makes an impressed _hm_ sound, sticking out his lower lip slightly and nodding. Tim can sense another period of silence coming up and decides to head this one off himself, in the interest of going to bed before sunrise comes tomorrow morning.

“Why are you here, Raylan?” he asks, and Raylan’s eyes narrow some, his expression hardening. Tim knows he’s pushing Raylan somewhere he’d rather not go, goading him into saying things out loud when the basis of so much of their communication has always been nonverbal, but he is _tired,_ damn it, and these past two days have been absolute hell. If Raylan doesn’t want to get into it right now, fine – but he should just go home, then, and leave Tim alone for a while.

For a moment it looks like Raylan is thinking about doing just that. Instead, he purses his lips, then says, “I thought you were dead yesterday.”

“I know,” Tim says, because he overheard that part of Raylan’s conversation with Art and Rachel at Lauren Witt’s house, after he’d gone to see the paramedics. 

“I’m not sure that you do,” Raylan spits back, and his tone is harsher than Tim expected. Maybe it’s harsher than Raylan expected, too, because he takes a deep breath, tries to reign in some of his anger. He _is_ angry – it’s written on every line of his face, in the rigid tension of his shoulders, and Tim, who has never once flinched at Raylan’s fury in the past, almost feels overwhelmed by it now.

“It wasn’t– I didn’t just think you were dead,” Raylan tries again. “I _knew_ it. It’d been hours, Tim. _Hours_. I was going to walk into that house and watch them take you out of it in a body bag. I _accepted_ that.”

Tim doesn’t say that he knows again – he doesn’t say anything at all. But the truth is that he does know; he knows exactly what Raylan’s talking about. He’s replayed the moment in his head a thousand times – when he was standing in Lauren Witt’s front room, looking out her bay window, and heard the creak of the floorboards that meant Walker was behind him. He’d known death had come for him then; there was no doubt about it, only… certainty. Clarity.

And then he’d survived.

“And then you were alive,” Raylan says. He opens his mouth to say something else but the words won’t come, and his jaw snaps shut. They’re left standing there, just looking at each other.

“I’m not accepting it again,” Raylan finally says, shaking his head slightly. “I understand why you need to deal with this. I understand why you’re going to do what you’re going to do, why you can’t let it go. But I’m not gonna watch you get yourself killed, or thrown into prison for the rest of your life.”

“But _why_?” Tim says, his frustration building.

Raylan smiles, but it’s not really a smile. A more fitting description might be that he bares his teeth. “Do I really need to say it?” he says, and Tim doesn’t know what the emotion in his voice is this time. Anger, maybe; some of the pleading he’d heard there for the first time yesterday. And something else, too, not so easily defined, that raises goosebumps on his skin and sends a chill like ice water down the back of his neck. 

Tim takes an audible breath through his nose, casting his eyes around for something to look at. Finding nothing compelling, they fall back to Raylan.

“You can come in, but I’m just letting you know now that I got about 45 seconds of consciousness left in me, so, y’know. If that doesn’t jive with your plans for the evening or whatever…” he sighs. Good God, this is excruciating. “… you can go. No, uh, hard feelings.”

“Let me in the damn apartment, Tim.”

Tim opens the door wider and Raylan walks in, just managing to keep his subsequent roll of the eyes from being exceedingly dramatic. They’re crawling into bed a few seconds later, Raylan kicking off his boots as he goes.

“Shitty day,” Raylan mutters as he slings an arm across Tim’s torso. 

“Eh,” Tim says, a warm, sleepy fog already creeping over his mind. “Coulda been worse.”


End file.
